Chapter 15: Way Back Home

Red Eagle and Sparks spent the next thirty minutes or so in the market square, with a mixture of arguing and trying to convince the merchant ponies to honor Mayor Madame’s deal with them providing the bulk of their discourse. Some were hesitant to part with their goods simply because they weren’t sure they were telling the truth, others outright claimed they were lying or couldn’t spare the resources in the wake of the attack, much to Eagle’s agitation. In the end, however, most gave up scant few supplies with reluctance and parting glares and scowls.

A precious few actually gave them things outright regardless of their actual value, to Eagle’s unvoiced surprise and Sparks’ incessant thanks, to which the ponies in question merely shook their heads, thanking them for having helped them survive with warm smiles. Before long, they had saddlebags full of miscellaneous oddments worth little to Eagle other than trade goods.

They had an ammunition restock between Eagle’s three-fifty-seven and three-o-eight cartridges and Sparks’ micro sparkle cells, precious little food in ration form, some water for their canteens, and little else of true use on the road. The most interesting gift being some rare doctor’s tools when Sparks told the local doctor pony that she was a practitioner of the healing arts; much to the doctor’s surprise as he offered spare tools that Sparks marveled at as she had seen some in her magazines before.

As they passed from one stall to the next, Sparks thought that Eagle wouldn’t be pleased with any amount of goods he procured from the townsponies, and she was right at least partially. He knew how dangerous the journey was, and no amount of supplies he could ever carry would comfort his worries about journeying so far away from his experience, nevermind the worries of the actual destination. Despite it though, He gave up trying to wrangle more out of the town, and his bags, along with an extra set of saddlebags given to Sparks as a gift, were laden with enough to give him some small piece of mind; enough to get them from Crystal City to the next town at least.

That very question, however, resounded in his mind. What path they would take and which places they would play metaphorical hop-scotch to reach The Divide? With nearly a thousand miles of empty Wasteland with precious settlements few and far between and several paths they could take to get there the question agitated him beyond belief.

Despite his desire to wash his claws of the ordeal and leave he felt some unseen tether fastening him to it, the reasons numerous and all of them fueling a simmering anger inside him. Time after time though his mercenary attitude resumed his drive to see it through, yet it was that very attitude being the driving force to be rid of the entire situation.

A frequent and resounding ‘fuck it’ echoed in his mind. He would do as he had always done in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Make it up as he went along, only this time an outrage grew in him as concern for his new charge exhumed his long buried convictions.

He wasn’t doing this alone; he wasn’t risking only his own life, but two with his antics, and the fact he still cared about that niggling little detail made his brow furrow immensely. He was used to being alone, free to risk his own life as he saw fit, and for the last twenty odd years it worked out well enough for him, but now he remembered vividly why he hated having a tag along of any kind.

The prospect of more death on his conscious.

*** *** ***

It was nearly ten thirty on Sparks’ PipBuck by the time she and Red Eagle had made their way to the proudly named ‘Vadim and Mikael’s Dug-Out Bar & Inn’. The crudely fashioned and color mashed neon sign, accurate to Mayor Madame’s description, with reds and blues as well as purples clashing together into a confused gradient that made their eyes sore just by staring at it.

Outside the bar she heard the low din within, and at times her nose twitched from passing aromas and odors she couldn’t place as she and Eagle stared at the entrance. He let out a sigh, with eagerness for drink and shuteye apparent in his longing, yet loathing gaze. He began to speak low and level, peeking at her from the corner of his eyes before fixing them back on the sign fixtures surrounding the door.

“A little bar wisdom?” Sparks peered at him with a soured face from the smoky fumes that emanated from within; her brows raised and her eyes held fast on him with a foul expression as he continued speaking. “Try to keep to yourself. Don’t accept drinks ponies in there give you unless they buy you one from the bar, especially if they’re already opened. That’s a drugging or poisoning waiting to happen. More importantly though is don’t drink too much, I doubt you know your limit and probably have never been drunk before anyways. I don’t want to have to carry you out of town come morning with you groaning in my ear.”

Sparks gave a small chuckle, and rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry about me getting... eh, drunk... I’ve never had much alcohol.”

Eagle nodded once, and sighed as he thought of anything else that might help. Remembering that Vadim was within and his bombastic nature he figured she might do well to know about him beforehoof. “Also... don’t be surprised when a huge yak in there gets excited to see you. He’s definitely a... creature person. He’ll probably talk your ears off about having saved to town.” Eagle’s beak twitched a little as he shifted his weight over to one set of legs, and he sighed after looking around the town behind them before continuing. “He’ll even be honest about it, unlike some ponies here.”

Sparks had been curious about that very detail herself, as with nearly every pony they spoke with a precious few bore genuine smiles to her judgment. A small, but perplexing detail that had her confusion building and building ever since she and Eagle left the mechanic mare’s garage. She very much wanted answers in that regard, but she would have been happy with just a bed as she fought back a yawn. “Yeah... I’ve been wondering about...”

“-Why everypony here has been giving us wayward stares? I’ve a suspicion but... this is different somehow.”

Eagle’s beak twitched again with a nearly audible sniffle as his eyes drilled the door before them, and he spread his wings out and stretched his body out with several hollow cracks of cartilage from his shoulders and neck. As ready as he could be he approached the door, grasped the lever knob, and breeched the seal that contained the noxious fumes. An indiscernible cloud of smoke, alcohol from beer to liquors, and the stench of unwashed bodies and what she could only describe as urine barreled out in buckets as Sparks visibly gagged on the scent.

Eagle reared his head back and had to stifle a chuckle, a nearly invisible smirk growing across his scarred beak in a sort of wicked vengeance. “Oh this should be good.”

Sparks fought back a reflexive gag that would have promised vomit, and balked with a wildly unbelieving expression as she stared through the bar’s open door into the dimly lit smoky atmosphere within. Holding a hoof to her nose, she spoke nasally. “Oh great Goddesses, what is that smell?!”

“That, Sparks, is called the welcome mat.” Eagle sucked in a lung full of the nauseating fumes, and with a half groaning exhale a smirk crossed his beak, shaking his head as he entered. “Never complete without one. Come on.”

As they entered the bar the harsh overhead beacons that refracted in the mesmerizing clouds of hanging smoke clashed vividly with the subtle darkness, creating entire gaps inSparks’ vision. As they passed into the bar proper the low din of townsponies within with most, if not all, taking drags and pulls from cigarettes and mugs grinded to a halt as they saw Eagle and Sparks making their way through the crowd. In the lowlight, she made out the mixture of hopeful smiles and agitated glares of ponies as the collective group watched them. She returned smiles as best she could, but the expression was dashed when her eyes locked with those who didn’t return the gesture.

The silence was broken however, by the unimaginably loud and strangely jolly laughter of a massive, almost impossibly furry yak that wore a smile that stretched between his ears from behind the counter, bringing everypony inside to a startle with his booming foreign accent. “Ahah, I knew it!! You do not disappoint me!!”

Eagle’s whole body seemed to recoil from the shouting, and he shook off the stunned expression and donned a small smirk. “Knew what Vadim?”

The huge yak barked a laugh, one that seemed to shake the bar to its foundation, and he dived behind the counter returning with a pair of tumbler glasses and a bottle filled to the brim with clear liquor that he nearly smashed to pieces on the counter. “That you would return of course! As if anything could keep you from my illustrious bar!! Come!! Drinks are on the house tonight for glorious victory!!”

He shook his hoof in the air with a powerful air of celebration, and he poured out moonshine into the glasses downing one almost as fast as he poured it. He smacked his lips with a certain gaze that Eagle guessed Vadim had already been drinking.

He shook his head suppressing a laugh, and sidled up to the bar hoisting the glass and made a silent toast before taking a shot off of it. His face twisted up in scowls and he inhaled sharply at the horrendous flavor, but he wouldn’t refuse a free drink from the yak.

Vadim with a lingering stare, his already wide smile somehow spread at the sight ofSparks as her expression was a mixture of sensory overload and bafflement at Vadim. He barked another laugh, shifted to the side and, with a surprising elegance, gave a form of courtier’s bow as he regarded her in a most gentleyakish fashion. “Well hello ma’am, welcome to Vadim and Mikael’s bar and inn! What might I get the mare for tonight’s reverie? We must celebrate, or mopers will drown us in self pity!!”

With a piercing gaze his eyes scanned the room with a glower before turning back toSparks with a beaming smile. She flustered a little, and looked at the massive wall of bottles and jars before her, finding herself once again without a frame of reference. “Well... I uh... I don’t know...”

She scratched her chin as her eyes went from one bottle to another, clear liquors and amber hued bottles lining the shelves with opaque, deeply brown bottles of ranging shapes and sizes amongst them. Some had stickers or papers plastered to their sides, almost all of them unintelligible to her even if they were legible.

She coughed slightly, daunted by the range of choices and simply put her hoof to the bar as she sat on the low stool, nearly having to jump up to it like a foal. “What eh.... what do you recommend? I’ve... never been to a bar before, actually...”

Vadim put a hoof to his chin as he turned to his selection, and turned back with a practiced smile of a bartender. “That depends, what type of flavor tickles your fancy? We’ve got vodkas, whiskeys, scotches and bourbons; ponies typically go for more... sweet or fruity flavors though. Wines, rums, and some other freshly made drinks like brahmin milk coffee creams and ciders. I can even cut them together as cocktails if you prefer, just tell me what kind of flavor you enjoy!”

Once again Sparks felt an overwhelming lack of understanding to all the things Vadim listed, but one among them all one poked out when he said it. Ciders. She had some when she was younger, although it wasn’t alcoholic and, more importantly, made with the bland and flavorless ‘apples’ from a Stable hydroponic ‘orchard’, and the flavor of the cider wasn’t much to be ecstatic over beyond just another method of eating Stable ration food.

She wondered if, somehow, the surface had actual apples, bright red and juicy, teeming from healthy trees as described in her textbooks. She doubted it greatly, but regardless a curiosity blossomed in her that she might just be able to get a passing taste of a true, honest to Goddesses apple. With a growing smile and a sudden levity in her voice she nodded heartily. “I think... I’ll try a cider!”

“Then a cider it is!”

Vadim pounded his massive chest with a hoof, making a loud and bass-like boom as he turned around going through his selection, returning with two identical bottles, both hued vaguely like... well, the best description she had was urine; an off color beige-yellow that at first glance made her second guess for a few moments.

As Vadim popped the rubber seal attached to a sort of simple, steel mechanism fastened to the bottle itself he set the bottles down on the counter alongside a glass beforeSparks, and the stenches of the bar seemed to subtly disappear as she hesitantly leaned forward to smell the drink.

Oddly enough, the not so appetizing visage of the cider was dwarfed by a strangely sweet smell coupled with a subtle tinge of alcohol, and much like her previous experiences with surface foodstuffs she wondered how it would fare. She shrugged and wreathed the bottle in her magical cyan aura, pouring herself a glass and setting the bottle back down. She hoisted the glass with her magic as she looked over to Eagle and Vadim, who both nodded as she nervously took her first steps into figurative marehood, and she took a copious sip from the cider.

The first sensory overload for her, to her immediate surprise, was a strange hoof in hoof delight and tang between the insane sweetness she could only understand as the apples she’s never had coupled with a kick of alcohol that hammered her tongue like, well... a hammer. She couldn’t describe it, as it was the single strangest thing she ever had the mixed pleasure of drinking.

She liked it well enough, the flavor was exquisite, but the slightly burning aftertaste made her cough subtly as she eyed with drink with peculiarity. “Oh -ahem-... wow, that’s... -ahem-, different.”

She coughed a few more times as Vadim laughed jubilantly, and he poured himself another glass of his moonshine and raised it high above into the smoky air. “To victory!!” He shouted, nearly rattling the walls and the posters lining them, and the general response was a mixed cheering sneer of sorts from ponies around, their hearing suddenly invaded. He downed his glass with no visible hesitance, and snorted as he glared about the room. “Sour bunch if I’ve ever seen one! Anyways, how do you like it, miss..?”

She looked up from the drink, and a nervous smile shot across her lips as a small embarrassment grew in her. “Sparks... Sparks Mr. Vadim! Pleased to meet you!” Her gaze trailed back to the bewildering drink as she took another sip from it, admittedly a much smaller taste as her tongue played around with the cider in her mouth.

Again, the terrific sweet drink tempered by the alcohol played tricks with her mind as she fought to decide one way or another her opinion. As she did so, however, her stomach surged with a sudden warmth that was indescribable, and she shook her head of the confusion as she looked back to Vadim. “It’s actually... not bad, just... weird! I’ve never had something like this before. Really sweet, but -ahem-... that aftertaste...”

“That would be the alcohol most likely; I am glad that you aren’t eehhh, too disagreeable with it though! But please, help yourself to as much as you want!”

The cheerful face of Vadim seemed to dispel the murky atmosphere for Sparks, and she smiled graciously as she eased into the barstool, trying to relax. “You’re too kind Vadim, thank you.”

He nodded with a wide smile as Sparks took another cautious sip of the cider, and he turned to Eagle with a certain smugness edged with caution in his expression. “So, I take it job was success?”

Eagle scoffed as he took another shot of the moonshine, and after his revulsions he smacked his beak and shook his head. “Well... It was a success until this attack happened. Now it’s only just started.”

Vadim poured himself more of his drink and with a single motion slurped down half of it in a flash. He shook his head in confusion and spoke far more quietly, despite the fact his ‘whispering’ was still plenty loud enough to be heard. “What do you mean? Or are you able to say?”

Eagle shook his head as he stared long at his half empty glass. He sighed as he continued speaking in a gravelly tone that subtly reverberated in the room as he maintained his gaze on his moonshine. “Most of it’s on the sly, but...” he peered over to Sparks as she sipped again off the cider, bringing it down to two thirds, and he sighed again. “Long story short, I was going to drop her off here and leave. Now I’ve got the package and have to make the drop. Way too far for my liking but the caps are too good to pass up...”

As Vadim grunted in response, Sparks had to suppress a chuckling scoff as she still didn’t believe he was doing it for the caps. She was glad he was going with her, knowing that he was right in every possible fashion that she couldn’t make it alone, but in the end boundless curiosity hammered her mind as to why he was risking life and limb after his own accounts of what The Divide held in store.

Eagle caught her twitches though, and with a distant stare took another shot off his drink. He knew he put himself in an... awkward position in terms of reasoning, but he hoped that he would never have to explain himself. He stuck it to the caps, sucking up his complaints and rode the mercenary reasons he so often in life pinned himself to.

He peered over to her, and after clearing his throat he motioned at her PipBuck with a talon as he lifted his glass to his beak. “How about some music Sparks? The silence is murder.”

Sparks looked up from her drink, and yet with a subtle glee to do so a sudden fear arose in her mind that Eagle and Vadim both recognized as her eyes fell on her PipBuck in worry. The former took his sip from the moonshine, feeling its effects in his claws and toe tips as it spread throughout him, and tilted his head in confusion. “Come on girl, it’s just music.”

With sudden apprehension her eyes shot from the device and locked with Eagle’s, fighting for the words to describe why she was so hesitant to tune to the Tenpony radio. “Well... it’s just, I... The uh, Dee-Jay... He might...”

“Paint you as a hero?”

Sparks had a sudden surge of fear that died as it was born, and merely shook her head solemnly as she lost herself in the cider glass before her; her entire belly becoming slightly warm from its embrace. “No... I mean, yeah that’s part of it but...” She sighed deeply, and took another sip of her drink as she thought to find solace in its strangely sweet flavor but finding none. “He might try to make those winged-... Lilac and her sisters... well...”

“The monsters of the story? Face it, they were. Just like those raider fiends they seem to live only to fuck others over for their gain.”

A short lived anger in Sparks’ mind burst to life as she turned in her stool and shot Eagle dangerous glances, venting her frustration loudly.“They were just trying to help!”

Eagle locked eyes with her, but kept quiet as he listened around for the bar’s reaction. Several of the ponies visibly scowled and glowered at her, and a scant few had compassionate expressions. Most just kept their faces buried in their diversions, smoking and drinking.

With a scowl of his own he raised his head in recognition and took his hat off, setting it down on the counter next to his drink as the smoky atmosphere and lights of the bar created a subtle dazzling of light off his feathers and facial features with sharp shadows. He spoke in near whispers as he took another shot off his moonshine. “That explains the stares...”

Sparks’ anger was smothered as she looked around the bar herself, and saw the wayward stares again as she became incredibly self conscious for no reason she could describe. Taking another sip from her cider she felt the effects it had grow and grow, and a subtle, whole body warmth enveloped her with her legs feeling tingly, her eyes felt some pressure behind them in her head.

She coughed a little, a uninitiated’s confusion to alcohol spurring, and turned to Eagle voicing her confusion to his words in whispers. “What do you mean?”

“Later.” Was all he said, and he scratched his beak and sniffled before turning to her, motioning his talon at her PipBuck again. “Now come on, the music will help. Trust me.”

Sparks still had reservations about it, but after a short period of visible reluctance with her mind fighting for a decision she relented, and with a few magical button pushes the PipBuck sprung to life, cutting back the silence and low din of the bar with a slow paced and wonderful jazz piece. The deep voice and suavity of the stallion complimented by elegant violins and piano seemed to flow like honey in the bar’s murmuring din, and silence grew as all the customers listened intently, rapt in its beauty.

“Eons ago, a million years before...”

“the best things in life were absolutely free...”

“But no pony appreciated a breeze that was always cool...”

“and no pony congratulated a moon that was always full..!”

“So it was made that they would fade away, now and then...”

“And we must pay before we get them... back again...”

“That’s what storms were made for, and we shouldn’t be afraid for...”

“Every time it rains, it rains... bits from heaven...”

“Don’t you know every cloud suspends... bits from heaven...”

“We’ll find our fortunes falling... all over town...”

“Be sure to turn your umbrella’s... upside down...”

“Trade them for a bundle of... sunshine and flowers...”

“If we want the things we love.... we must have showers..!”

“So when the skies thunder, don’t trot under a tree...”

“There’ll be bits from heaven... for everypony..!”

The ending crescendo of the song seemed to deflate everypony in the bar; every creature even, as Eagle and Vadim sighed in a sudden, but welcome, release of tension no one knew they had. Sparks had lost herself in the song, and desired to flip the station off to cut off DJ Pon3 before he had a chance to ruin the near euphoric atmosphere left in the song’s wake, only the song’s message itself seemed to strike a strange and hidden cord in her emotions.

It kept her magic off the PipBuck’s controls, and merely took another sip from her cider as she tensed, hoping that the radio merely went to the next song.

Eagle’s beak curled into a small smirk, and after lifting his glass up in a toast he nodded to her as she sat there in her mental battle. She looked up, and seeing him and Vadim smiling she sighed, and lifted her own glass with her cyan magic returning the gesture. Vadim spoke first, and it seemed almost as if he was holding back tears. “It... may not be yak music, but... it is still touching to hear...”

Eagle turned to him after he emptied his glass down to a quarter, and with a shudder he spoke with a strange levity that was nearly missed by Sparks. “You sure it isn’t the moonshine talking?”

Vadim chuckled a little, and grunted after wiping his eyes. His voice was melancholic as his eyes seemed to be lost in thought. “No... not moonshine, only memories. I used to have radio of my own but after, eh... incident involving moonshine I uh... ‘broke’ radio. My brother and I used to listen to Dee-Jay Pon Three all the time, his music selection we warmed up to after hard times...”

Sparks’ ears perked up at the mention of ‘broke’, and she didn’t know if it was the cider talking, which with the way she felt may have very well been the case, or her own curiosity, but she propped herself up on the bar as her PipBuck slipped into another song; its lyrics and instruments fading into a kind of background noise at the edge of her attention. “You... broke the radio? How?”

Vadim donned an expression that seemed a mixture of indignation with embarrassment. He chuckled like a drum though as he waved a hoof over to his side, gesturing at the sad and rusty form on the counter of what was once a radio. “Yes... you see friend, we yaks have love for smashing things -It’s like tradition-, but we usually only smash specific things that aren’t so precious... like radio. Brother and I got drunk pretty good one night and whomp!! Come morning we smash more things when we find out radio was broken...”

Sparks looked at it with a long and hard gaze as she took another sip from her cider, momentarily feeling a sudden wave of balance loss as her body fell into an all encompassing feeling of slight inebriation; her cheeks felt warm and her head with a slight pressure behind her eyes. She shook her head, and fixed Vadim with a hopeful smile. “You mind if I take a look at it? I can probably fix it.”

Vadim shrugged, and went to the radio hoisting it with a hoof and set it down before her at the bar. “Feel free to try; most ponies here say it was broken beyond repair but... part of me thinks they didn’t even try.”

She nodded as she touched the machine, inspecting the rusty panels and small screws that kept the thing together. With an instinctual reach of her hoof she felt around in her saddlebags before groaning suddenly. “Ah shoot... I forgot, my tools are with Mayor, argh! Eagle, you wouldn’t happen to have a-” as she turned to him she saw in his talon a small and dirty red nylon roll with pieces of metal poking out of the ends. His beak held a nearly invisible smugness in his smirk, and Sparks smiled widely as she took it in her magic. “Thanks...”

“You’re welcome.”

She undid the knots holding the roll together, and rolled it out on the counter revealing a litany of screwdrivers and picks, pliers and crimps of griffon make. With a practiced ease she took a cross-tip screwdriver and removed the back panel from the radio box, revealing a mess of wires widely ranging in color, and a wiring diagram, nearly smudged illegible with time and dust, was on the panel itself.

She smiled, and nodded to herself as she inspected the diagram and compared it to the almost chaotic internals of the radio box, and with another sip of her cider she fell into a wordless working mantra; a dance she had performed for all her life.

Only now, the machine she fixed wasn’t an Enclave weapon or some Stable-Tec machine that performed a monotonous function for less than grateful fellow Stable dwellers. It was a radio; a beloved piece of brutalized technology for a newfound friend.

*** *** ***

As they sat in the almost serene bar, interrupted only by the occasional cough of another customer, they relished in the calm and relative quiet of the low tuned jazzy music from the radio that permeated after Sparks had finished fixing it. It took surprisingly little effort to repair, as the damage was mostly just a few wires that were broken loose and a dead micro spark battery.

She laughed a little when she saw what the problem was, and agreed with Vadim that nopony must have really tried to fix it; either that, or nopony in town was truly qualified to fix simple electronics. After she finished up the repairs and flipped the switch the radio burst to life, with the lights in the front panel blazing bright, and after switching through different frequencies finally keyed it to the Tenpony radio station.

With the jazzy tunes flowing again, she sighed with a wide smile taking in the music. It was a victory, a small one perhaps, but no less fulfilling as she polished off her glass of cider with Vadim whose bombastic nature met new extremes from the great news. He nestled the radio back in it’s cubbyhole with an amusing delicacy, and bowed lowly as he kissed Sparks’ hoof in thanks.

Despite the awkward nature of the gesture to her, she smiled widely and poured out another half glass, figuring that might be enough for her for the rest of the night; her doctor’s temperance loose in her inebriation. She and Eagle rose from their stools and, despite a little loss of balance, they managed to reach a well worn couch that both of them simply existed on; one that Sparks eyed with uncertainty as she took off the robe she wore with a sudden overwhelming sensation of heat washing over her from the cider.

She wasn’t used to such dilapidated furniture after all, and she showed it in every wayward stare at stains and blotches that tore holes on the once dyed fabrics, their color having lost their sharp hues decades ago. She was surprisingly comfortable drinking the delectably sweet, yet strange alcoholic kick of the cider, but any reservations she once had were set aside in the form of a 'coming of age' for herself.

Well marinated himself, Red Eagle peered over to Sparks as she fought for comfort on the sofa, and his eyes trailed down to her cutie mark as it was clear now for him to see with her robe off. A lightning bolt with a snake coiling around it, but oddly geometrically stylized with sharp angles and contrasts. The bolt and snake and their bronze highlights on black and the bolt’s center a bright, almost cyan blue smaller bolt highlighting the mark almost mesmerizing the longer he stared.

Figuring conversation might be a decent way to distract her from any thoughts she might be having, and spurred by his own unconscious curiosity, he spoke in lowly and slightly slurred by his inebriation. "So... Sparks, lets hear your cutie mark story."

She eyed over to him with at first a confused expression that Eagle had become accustomed to with her. She wore it often as it were. "What do you mean?"

Eagle chuckled at her lowly, and a grin crossed his beak. "Your cutie mark story, every pony's got one; how you got it, what it means -the works."

Sparks visibly shrank into the couch as if trying to hide in its cushions, albeit unsuccessfully as her overly warm body demanded a breeze to cool herself. "Oh, well... I have to admit it uh... might be a touch boring. Never had luck in that department. Others in the Stable had such... extravagant stories behind theirs, most were even true but... mine isn’t. Not by a long shot."

'Must be the cider' she thought, and she rubbed her belly with a hoof with a mixture of regret and a... subtle displeasure feeling as she felt like a low burning furnace with no air to breathe. She couldn’t deny its affect though, as she physically felt the best she had in a long while; loose and relaxed with only subtle anxiety fueling her worries.

Eagle saw her motion, and just shook his head as he sipped on his moonshine again. "Don't worry to hard about drinking; it might be a bit rough at first, but the buzz is handy the longer you're out here."

They both shifted in their seats, trying to relax as best as they could but no matter how they tried they couldn’t; Sparks for the lack of comfort dominated by her book smarts about alcohol kicking in and the couch’s terrible shape, and Eagle... well, for just being unable to truly relax. The need to be always poised to pounce was engrained in him.

He smacked his beak and lapped his tongue around from the atrocious taste of his moonshine after a sip, and with a lazy claw motioned to Sparks. "But enough doom and gloom, let’s hear it. Not much else to do for a minute."

Sparks screwed her face up trying to form the story, but the iterations she came up with were dull to her. "Alright... well, I got my mark when I was... I think thirteen, when Mr. Auburn got himself locked in his room... again I should say. His door panel was fried so it wasn’t truly his fault but..." She sighed deeply between words, as if in a mixture of nostalgia and humor as she bore a sad smile.

"The old coot could really get himself into trouble like that. He was wheelchair bound and wasn’t the best at much of anything except keeping others on their hoof tips. But... anyways, he somehow managed to fry his door's panel something fierce. Since I was the only pony there to deal with it as... as usual all the other engineering ponies were busy... I had to open the panel and ended up having to rewire the electronics in it with a spare microspark cell I had in my suit. Apparently the wires connecting the door to the reactor had been severed somehow, and wouldn’t open without a power source."

She paused as she stared at the cider glass before her, and after a brief contemplation of lapping of her tongue around her mouth she lifted the drink with her magic and took a sip. Its flavor was excellent every time, but the alcoholic aftertaste sent her body into a small squirming fit.

"Problem was... that when I hooked the power cell to the door, it fried the circuit board. I had to hardwire the... frikin’ thing to make it open properly. After we got him out of his room my cutie mark... exploded itself with a shower of magic and sparkles on my haunches, plain as day. A lightning bolt with a snake coiled around it. I've been trying to figure it out ever since then really."

Eagle shifted lower into his seat, and with a short sigh he spoke. “And you did that at thirteen?” Eagle said, his tone showing a touch of surprise.

“Yeah...?” She said, confused. “It wasn’t much really.”

“Hmm... more than I could do at thirteen with tech; too busy shoveling brahmin shit to learn electronics.” He sighed as he looked back in his life, but he shook his head and stared at her cutie mark again. "It kind of looks like an old prewar medical sign actually. One of the... older symbols; before the Ministry of Peace I think.”

Sparks’ face turned into an expression of deep thought, and she eyed her flank as the symbol that was supposed to summarize her life’s specialty into one picture on her hide only bore confusion as to what it really meant. "Yeah, that's what most ponies told me... I did a little research into it but the absolute broad subject of 'medical symbol' wasn’t... uh, conclusive... at best. The lightning bolt I guess is a... an allusion to the power cell I used but... ah, I don't know."

Sparks closed her eyes and sank deep into the couch after a sigh, and after a short time Eagle coughed and spoke low and level as he scratched his jaw with a claw. "Sounds like using power or... maybe just technology you can help ponies; creatures in general maybe."

Sparks looked up to him with subtle wonder in her eyes, and she tilted her head slightly. "You think so?"

"If I’ve gathered one thing from hearing cutie mark stories they're almost always symbolic. Along with the circumstances and such you helped a pony out with a battery. Pretty simple considering some I’ve heard before." He twirled his near empty glass before sipping it again. "And... from watching you go on and on, you like to help others. Might be your specialty is using technology to help them, much like how you used your laser pistol to 'help' ponies in need today; or perhaps more simply that radio.”

He pointed a claw at the radio beyond, it still strumming away lazy jazz tunes. “You fixed it and look around. Calm, quiet, subtle music with booze to ease the tension, with not a damn one weeping in their wine."

Sparks’ eyes sank into contemplation as she played with the idea in her head with the background music gently caressed her ears, and she thought about how the others felt around her listening to what she thought was the greatest music she had ever heard before, despite the subtle fear of the DJ coming on and spouting more of his ‘praise’; the act surprisingly absent from the air causing her subtle confusion.

She saw the lazy forms of drunken ponies around her, and while at a glance one might have judged simply that they were simply drunk, but a longer look drew into view that they seemed to be soaking in the moments of relative comfort with relief buried under the drink. While the mention of using violence to help still turned her stomach slightly, the feeling made worse by her slight inebriation coupled with confusion as to Eagle’s sudden wisdom she hadn't expected of him she felt as if there was a ring of truth in it.

She simply nodded her head in agreement. "You know... there was a whole class and... well, science into cutie mark studies back in my Stable. An entire month of gibberish basically, but they didn't... even think of that idea."

"Well, sometimes creatures over think things to death. Symbolism and such is sometimes better handled bluntly." He raised his empty glass as he wondered if he should get it refilled, and held it toward her in example. "For example, I could go on a... philosophical rant about how alcohol is an ages old fun time drink; that ponies and all others alike have enjoyed forever between religious or recreational reasons. I could say I drink because I’m participating in that age long tradition, or maybe I drink because it's an... escapist drug like most junkies."

He lazily turned his head to Sparks as she stared at his somewhat glossy deep blue eyes, held raptly in attention. His frowning scarred beak became a grin. "Truth is... I drink because I like it. With all the shit we go through in The Wasteland, why not do something you enjoy?"

Sparks tilted her head as Eagle polished off his glass, the detesting expression apparent in his face. "Even though it tastes like... well, like ass?"

"How do you know what ass tastes like?" The jabbing comment brought a fierce blush to Sparks’ cheeks, as planned, and he merely chuckled with a wide grin as she buried her eyes in her drink. "Jokes aside, the flavor isn’t what it's about, it's the buzz that takes the edge off the day. Around here... sometimes that's all you need to keep going."

His grin became a sullen frown as he stared long into the glass. His sigh broke Sparksfrom her embarrassment, and she took another squirming sip from her cider and spoke afterwards. "Well, on that note I think sleep would do me best."

"Agreed.” Eagle sighed deeply. “After today I could sleep until noon tomorrow easily enough, despite the fact we don’t have the time. We've got a long road ahead of us."

The reminder of his new practically permanent charge still set Eagle’s mind uneasy. He sighed again as he thought long and hard about how they were supposed to get to The Undiscovered West. It was, until now, a buried worry beneath his moonshine, and after confirming his need for a refill he pondered just how bad his luck was. 'First it's going to The Hoof, now... now it's going headlong into The West, into The Divide of all places'.

He made a surprisingly successful attempt at getting up to walk to the bar, despite his loss of articulation in his steps, and after getting a refill he made his way to their room for the night. He stopped at the door and looked back to Sparks as she sat there staring at her drink, and held his glass up to her in his talon with a pointing claw. "Make sure you get some sleep alright? Won't be hard I’d figure but... just get some sleep."

With that he closed the door behind him, leaving her on the couch alone with her thoughts and discomforts. She rubbed her belly again, and after taking another sip off her glass she curled up on the couch with dimming eyes and thought of everything and nothing for the second time tonight. The only outside stimulus being the radio, and she listened intently to the words of the music.

It was a mare this time, one with a beautiful singing voice alongside a slow and steady jazz band merely strumming and blowing slowly away at their instruments, which by ear sounded like pianos and smooth sounding trumpets backed by nearly therapeutic bass chellos. She sang of love, as she had come to expect of almost all jazz songs from what she had heard so far, about her handsome stallion and how life was so easy with him.

Some part of her twisted a little inside as she heard the song, like the heartstrings it plucked at rang with a sudden yet subtle hollowness; echoing and reverberating for a dead audience in a concert hall with nary a soul to enjoy it. Save for herself, as if she was the only pony in the room as she was all at once the band, orchestrator, and audience, playing a song written in happiness but sung in a voice of remorse and sorrow as tears streaked her cheeks.

A song of remembrance, as some distant part of her mused grimly, and her thoughts drifted into The Wasteland as a whole. She had heard a litany of love songs from DJ Pon3’s station, among others that sang of how great things were before The War with the Enclave’s propaganda radios with big band symphonies. All of it, however, with a sullen feeling felt like nothing more than dispersing mist of rain in desert winds as all these songs of love and life and glory merely whispered to themselves emptily, as if clinging blindly to what once was.

Her eyes watered as these thoughts came to her, their vindications echoed as image flashes came and went. Her first sight of the world beyond Stable Ninety-Six with the seemingly endless deserts around a wicked city below her, the battle ground in the courtyard with shredded corpses draped in powered armor surrounding a heap of slagged metal, the slaughtered raider fiends and their final nameless victim from beyond the grave when he died from being freed, the griffons who supposedly died in the line of duty for stale justice.

Lilac and her sister’s twisted desire to ‘save’.

Of a sudden, Sparks darkly thought that all the songs she so enjoyed had no presence, not here in The Wasteland. They were songs of everything that The Wasteland lacked, even her own home included in the judgment as she thought of the Stables in a new light; albeit shifted merely inches. They were holes and towers, gigantic steel and lead boxes powered by the magics of a bygone generation built for the sole purpose of shielding their dwellers from the balefire storms and magical radiation from beyond.

Unfortunately now, she realized in her near drunken contemplations after another long draught of cider, they may have protected thoroughly against these physical threats... only there was no such guard for the psychological, the spiritual wounds inflicted by murdering nearly the entire world in raging flames. The scars on the minds of ponies and creatures in general that had to live on knowing all those great things these songs sung of... no longer existed, with empty smiles and embraces as they droned about like machines.

She feared though, that if they still did, they were all as hollow ringing as the songs themselves. A metaphorical feedback loop of ponies and creatures emulating things long lost.

She wiped away the slowly streaking tear from an eye and curled up even tighter against herself, and as Sparks slowly sank off into sleep she clung to its words, regardless of her dark thoughts as if in defiance, much like how Eagle had said the rest of the patrons were. With a guttering sigh she simply let go of her thoughts, and as she slipped away into unconsciousness the music droned away in her ears, and ebbed away into a dull and hollow song with merely a candle’s warmth for her ruminations.

Like a foal clinging to a stuffed toy, however, she pushed away the care, and felt more alone than ever; the song acting as a small and weak anodyne.

"Being with you..."

"is painless living, it's painless to be"

"when you're in love, and I’m so in love"

"There's nothin’ in life... but you..."

"There's no affliction... the time I’m giving"

"They're painless to give... when you're in love"

"I’m happy to do... whatever I do for you..."

"With you, maybe I’m a fool but it’s fun..."

"Ponies say you rule me with one..."

"sway of your hoof, darlin' its grand..."

"They just misunderstand..."

"Being with you, is painless living"

"It's painless to be, when you're in love..."

"And I’m so in love... there’s nothin’ in life but you!"

Footnote: Red Eagle Level 22

Sparks Level 4

Next Chapter: Chapter 16: Old Lands, New Frontiers Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 13 Minutes