Chapter 16: Old Lands, New Frontiers

“How’re yah doin’ kiddies!! It’s me -Dee-Jay Pon Three!- and I’m back today with another batch of that ever so excitin’ news, and this time around it may be more than your little hearts can handle!

“Now, fellow Wastelanders... I know that we’ve all heard a little about a certain relatively new up and comin’ town in the north, one called ‘Crystal City’ if you remember me talking about it years ago, nestled in the plains practically within spittin’ distance north of the Canterlot Ruins, and all the horrible things it’s got in that lovely parcel of a prewar tourist trap that keeps most of us in the south from paying a visit... But believe it or not sittin’ in front of me I have a report that goes above and beyond the standard fare of Wasteland shenanigans we get even on an annual basis.

“Now for starters, this report is a mess... Admittedly I would have reported on this clusterfuck that happened a day and a half ago sooner had I the ability to, but one monster of a storm prevented from me bein' able t’ gather enough information t’ keep me from babblin’ over the air like an idiot; despite the fact I still feel like that now.

“That super powerful, hurricane style storm that stretched from the Neighagra Falls all the way t’ the Gallopin' Gorge and from Canterlot up t’ the Crystal Mountains from the report, seemed t’ be focused over our little town of Crystal City it seems.

“For what reasons? Your guess is as good as mine kiddies, as the only picture I can paint is that a sudden downpour and lightnin’ show simply sprung out of the air, and it lasted for only for a few hours before fizzlin’ out of existence, leavin’ the same ole dreary cloud layer that our good old friends... the Enclave... erected over our rustic paradise in place, like nothin’ had happened.

“Now... that by itself is bad, as anypony would imagine with a gale-force storm justpoppin’ and poppin’ out like a light switch, but the -what I dearly hope is hearsay- reason for it from what I’ve heard is downright spine chillin’...

“Some sort of new mutants -or creatures, or... whatever they were- were t’ blame for it -and listen to this. They were unicorns, who had wings! Take that in for a moment and understand that even I had t’ do a double take when I heard that.

“Now, let’s just entertain the idea, especially since I don’t have any eyes-on proof of this, that Alicorns -as my lovely assistant told me they were called in the old days- did indeed completely, out of nowhere, make a sudden comeback into our lives after an absence that stretches all the way back to before The War, I’m meaning the big one a hundred years ago.

“We all know what we’d think if we ever saw somethin’ like that, and t’ be honest I wouldn’t blame yah for it. If a really tall unicorn with wings came up to me, lookin’ high and mighty like our own ‘Alicorn’ statue out in front of Tenpony Tower, I’d be inclined to bow to just out of respect for The Goddesses, Celestia and Luna; but lemme tell yah it doesn’t seem like they came t’ play nice -or bring deliverance of any kind.

“It saddens me to say, unfortunately for the denizens of Crystal City, they just decided t’ pay them a visit. Such a... glamorous visit as well t’ probably explain the lightshow that even we over in Manehattan felt a draft. From the reports the town suffered some, well... ‘substantial casualties’, and afterwards it looks like they just... disappeared; leavin’ the town pretty beat up it seems.

“My prayers go out t’ you guys, and I will be scurryin’ like a madpony until I can get more information one way or another about what actually happened as, well... I’m not sure I believe my eyes. Rest assured. If you lot are listenin’ in, well I’ll say this much... Goddesses be with yah folks, and maybe I can convince some caravans t’ head out that way t’ trade.

“The most peculiar thing though in this report... might be that after the battle two characters were seen leavin’ Crystal City headin’ out into the wastes. You, my faithful listeners, will remember them from a previous newscast back in The Hoof where a griffon and a Stablemare, one ‘Red Eagle’ and an unknown pony whose only identification card is those classy blue and gold duds. There were seen going in one end of a tunnel chock full of raider fiends and out the other with the whole lot of them wiped out; a feat that is still amazin’...

“If they had anythin’ t’ do with the survival of Crystal City, well... let me be the first t’ say from beyond; thank you with all my heart. There’s too few of us trying to make the north a safer, welcoming place as it is, and it’s good that the townsponies are safe.

“Thank you for keepin’ up the good fight, Red and Blue. I hope yah don’t mind me calling you that ma’am since I don’t have a name for yah, heh heh! If you have a preference, send a letter or, better yet, drop by the studio and I’ll be sure t’ let my lovely assistant interview you as our newest Wasteland radio sensation!

“Any who... this has been Dee-Jay Pon Three, with the absolute latest in Equestrian Wasteland news, and now the weather... Cloudy, rad-counters clickin’ and violence on today’s forecast to compliment the bleak and dreary. I mean, give me a day where that isn’t the forecast...! Goddesses...!

“From your lips, t’ Celestia’s ears... Here’s a piece from Sapphire Shores! Singin’ in such a lovely voice we can’t help but fawn over!”

*** *** ***

Desert winds moaned across the desolate expanse, a numbing mixture of dust and bone chilling moisture that cut away any heat from the cloud smothered sun above. The colors were muted, and lacked any vibrancy as sparse tan and brown bowls of hills broke apart the matching horizon that stretched beyond without a seeming finite point of end, save to the south where a distant mountain range of blackened brown peaks jutted high above just barely scraping at the dense and bleak cloud layer above. An almost indiscernible forlorn shape was nestled at the range’s peak, which seemed to resemble a half destroyed castle.

Sparks knew though, from her PipBuck’s declaration and her time in history class, that it was Canterlot.

The words of the DJ emanated in her mind, finally getting the dreaded newscast she so despaired; only the pain she expected was dull and lost its edge as she stared into the expanse of The Wasteland and ruins beyond. Her thoughts jumped from the Alicorns -the new name for them strange but sensible she guessed- that she and Red Eagle had faced merely yesterday, and the knowledge she had of prewar Equestrian glory and the newfound depth of unfathomable destruction sparked by Equus’ resident hooves.

She spoke lowly, with a shadow of numbness plainly wearing the strain she had suffered in a night’s inebriated stupor. A melancholic mind having drifted into darker waters than any she had tread before in life as she bore a subtle headache that followed. It agitated her mind into such thoughts. “I knew it...”

Eagle stopped mid pace and turned his head back to her to find her staring off to the south at Canterlot, nestled high in the mountains. His expression flat and empty as his focus was consumed on their journey beyond, and his voice emanated with a similar hollowness akin to the desert winds. “Knew what?”

“That... well, Dee-Jay Pon Three...”

Eagle’s stance flared no emotion, but the hard and calloused mercenary inside him had to stifle a chuckling scoff at the realization of a fresh faced survivor. His gaze trailed off to that ruined castle off in the distance, sniffling near silently as he stared at its destroyed form of jutting towers and walls that lined the cliff’s edge near the mountaintop.

To Eagle, it merely represented another of the modern world’s horrors, but to Sparksits visage gave the friction necessary for her to continue truly grasping the extent of a bygone conflict; the very scorched ground a testament and receipt of war.

Eagle spoke flatly, but a sullen soberness was easily detected in his voice. “I told you. No matter what they intended their history is blood soaked.”

His words sent a pang of buried guilt inside his own chest, as he remembered he had counted himself among that group. How many creatures across time that, despite their intentions, had wrought nothing but harm in the end? All their ledger marks burned red with flame and blood, drowning the little good they ever did. Eagle gave a sparing glance at the mushy soil below them; a muddied mixture of dirt and dust, as well as century old ash as he merely realized what he had already decades ago.

Sparks’ suppressed scoff shook Eagle from his own traveling ruminations, and he looked back to her with an empty expression as she spoke sullenly.

“It’s just... why does everypony keep on trying to make it... well, seem alright? There isn’t a single good thing I’ve seen or done out here that hasn’t left a sour taste in my mouth, even when I was stitching up the townsponies yesterday...” She sighed as her broiling thoughts spoke themselves; eager for a compassionate shoulder and relief. “I did a fair bit of good then, I didn't even have to... to hurt anypony, but I wouldn’t have had to stitch them up if there wasn't a... problem to begin with, with the Alicorns. The Dee-Jay... he goes on about this ‘good fight’ and labels us as... essentially heroes for hurting creatures in the name of this ‘good fight’ of his...”

Eagle gave a guttering sigh of understanding, as he himself had to deal with the same questions she was currently facing. He shook his head as he turned his gaze back to Canterlot in the distance and his tones were morose, but flat. “Sparks... the only thing I can say for them is that... they mean well. He thinks you’re actually doing good despite the fact you’ve subjected yourself and others to hell. He just has a different idea of what good actually means.”

He paused as his mind’s traveling thoughts broiled as well, and he had, for a moment, agreed with Sparks on at least one thing before he continued. “I have to admit... Those... ‘Alicorns’, as he called them, might think they’re doing good. Then again so does the Enclave and I’m sure the prewar Ministries thought they were doing good. You need only look around and back to yesterday to see where it led for them. With the Enclave they hide above the clouds, prattling on about past glories as their fellow kin die down here in droves. The Ministries? They didn’t prevent the apocalypse...

“And those Alicorns? Well... you got a taste of their ‘unity’ as they called it for yourself; we both did, honestly. Some folks might think they know what’s good for every creature, but in the end it’s what’s good for them -or what they believe.”

Sparks looked to Eagle as he spoke, with a solemn expression and a small wonder in her eyes. He gave a sigh and turned to her; his deep blue eyes glaring beneath the shadow of his wide brimmed black hat. “The Dee Jay means well, and despite the fact he knows absolutely shit about what his ‘good fight’ actually entails I’ve grown to take the compliments in the spirit they’re given; might go mad otherwise.”

Sparks wanted to speak, but found no words to say as she gazed back to the massive abandoned castle in the distance. She remembered the tales of how it was once the seat of Equestrian government, administrating the guidance Equestria needed through the princesses of yore with a thousand years of peace behind them. One war, however, tore it all asunder, and it stood after a century of abuse as a mottled example of failure.

Her gaze trailed from Canterlot and wandered across the mountain line until her eyes locked with a strange spire in the distance; it was tall and almost silvery in the filtered sunlight and altogether a strange and alien addition to the blackened brown mountains surrounding it. She tilted her head slightly, and wondered with a passing, unvoiced question what purpose it served as her eyes trailed up and down the spire, only she shook her head with a solemn expression and turned to Eagle.

“I... I guess with the way things are they could see it as alright... I’ve only been out here for little over a week and I’ve done more than my entire Stable combined; the Overmare would definitely be shocked how fast it’s all going downhill... Mom and Dad too...”

Eagle’s beak twitched a hair at the mention of her parents. He had never truly known his own, only his father who died when he was young with wisps of memories filling the gaps of his youth. The only true parent he ever had was Bartus, yet the memories he buried deep. His melancholy however got the better of him as he stared out into The Wasteland around them.

He spoke to her as he turned around and continued his slow and methodical pace through the half mushy landscape. “Tell me about them; your folks.”

Sparks looked to him as he walked away, and after resuming the pace she cocked her head to the side, voicing the curiosity in her face. “What for?”

“Well for starters to break the quiet. We’ve got way too much walking to do until we reach The Divide; and trust me, walking that far in silence will drive you mad. If you want to talk about something else then by all means but just pick something.”

Sparks’ mind wandered as he told her to pick a conversational topic without a care to which, however as her own memories came back they made her nostalgic; an idea that still perplexed her as she mused she would never step hoof back into Stable Ninety-Six.

She sighed a little before speaking, and that feeling hummed a little in her voice. “Well... Mom and Dad are... to put it simply the ‘weird couple’ of Ninety-Six. They never really fit in anywhere -a fact they’re proud of- and they never take much of anything seriously. They’re always the ones who crack the jokes at things the others just-”

Sparks’ words were cut off mid-sentence by her own thoughts as she realized something profound. She wondered what her parents would have said about all this; The Wasteland and everything she had gone through. What would her mother, a fantasizing unicorn mare whose reading habits have her delve off into ridiculous fictions about high adventure or romance, think of the things her ‘darling puddin’’ has gone through already? Or what would her father, a satirical and quick witted pegasus geek who spends most of his free time deep into Ogres and Oubliettes with her mother and his friends playing out their wildest fantasies say?

The first dark thoughts she swept aside, ones where she mused they would welcome the chance at real adventure in The Wasteland; her thinking that ‘adventure’ would be nothing but death and carnage. No, she thought about it harder and imagined her parents loving and tender hooves on her shoulders, calling her ‘puddin’’ and welcoming the foal names in light of the lack of compassion she’s faced, as she remembered their parting words.

‘Where ever you go, no matter how... dangerous or bleak it gets out there in the wide old world, remember that we love you and are here for you; not in person as much as we’d want to be but in spirit.’

She had said she was worried, only slightly with a blatant ignorance even the Stable’s and Enclave’s training regimen couldn’t prepare her for, but she remembered again what her parents had said.

‘It’s only natural to be worried puddin’, just remember that... well, we’re worried too, and that in the face of such danger to keep your sense of humor. Bad things happen all the time here in Ninety-Six, but your Mom and Dad always laugh at it. The bad things only get stronger if you yourself feed them, and getting all depressed about it isn’t going to help you make it better.’

The last memory echoed slightly in her mind, and she realized of a sudden she had already failed in their parting advice as she was swept up in the chaos of the outside world. With a sullen shame she began to drift off into the depressing thoughts she couldn’t help but think, and no matter how much she fought with it she couldn’t stop it.

With a single tear inching down her slate-blue cheek, she resolved within herself to do better from there on out, to keep her sense of humor and not allow the world to break her spirit no matter the odds. She didn't want to disappoint her parents, her friends, or even herself, anymore despite her nagging fears of the great and terrible world beyond.

Eagle looked over to her as she trudged forward on autopilot alongside him, and his expression showed none of the small concern he grudgingly had at her expression, shifting between sadness and stoicism, and spoke lowly. “Sparks...?”

She startled slightly with her distant eyes yanked from their fixation, and after wiping them with a sleeve of her Stable suit, fortunately fresh and washed clean by Mayor Madame’s good graces, she gave a shuddering sigh before she spoke in a shaky voice. Her creeping sadness was apparent in her tones, and Eagle merely arched a brow; the expression all but invisible below his hat’s shadow. “Sorry... I uh, I was just remembering... something they said... Anyway, where was I?”

“You were saying they never take anything seriously.”

Sparks’ expression gave a flickering recognition as Eagle turned his head back to the road, and she cleared her throat before continuing in the same nostalgic tones. “Okay, well... yeah, right on the nail there. Usually laughing, as they put it, in the face of problems. One time the Stable has a pretty bad leak in the sublevels and Dad was assigned to fix it. Being one of the best engineers of the Stable he could handle it no problem but the panic it induced when he came back covered in... eh, sewage, and laughing as he went on a huge tangent about how messed up it was set everypony on edge. He had fixed it, no problem, but led them on for a few hours about how he couldn’t.”

Sparks gave a hollow laugh as she shook her head; a small smile spreading across her lips. “He told me a pipe just needed replacing and when he removed it the valve further down the line failed, covering him in obnoxious amounts of the Stable’s waste. He said ‘it was just desserts’ with that sly smile of his.”

Eagle gave a short, nearly silent grunt as he found a little humor in it, and spoke with a dash of warmth in his tones. “Sounds like a decent sort. A bunker full of doomsayers would get taxing.”

“Yeah... if he wasn’t so useful he’d probably be a pariah, but I think Mom is the balancing act there. She’s the head wrench jock-...” Sparks’ words seized mid-sentence, and after a heinous mental evaluation of the chosen term she rectified herself with a shudder. “Hrm... mechanic in the Stable, and she’s one of the few who could disassemble the Stable’s generators and put them back together if she wanted to. She taught me all I know about the mechanical aspects of arcano-tech as far as fixing them; which is handy to know in a Stable. Or when the Enclave ships in crates of tech to fix and refurbish.”

Eagle was still mentally scratching his head in regards to why the Enclave needed their Stable to fix their own gear and goods, and deciding to keep the trail of conversation alive he pondered aloud his questions with an edge of amusement. “Still confused as to why the Enclave doesn’t just have their own gear heads fix their junk. It’s not like they don’t have them, so why spend the resources shipping freight to a Stable?”

He struck a familiar chord of confusion in her mind, and she shrugged a little mid-stride as she gave a short chuckle. “I asked the same question a few years ago, but the answer I got was ‘don’t know, but we’re glad we can help’. I... well, now I think they were just glad that as long as we made ourselves useful the Enclave wouldn’t strip our Stable for parts as you said. Somepony had eavesdropped something like that and spread rumors about it a while back, and we apparently got an officer from The Enclave. Apparently it was to make speeches.”

Eagle scoffed with a dull amusement, and he shook his head as he spoke. “I can only imagine the lies he was spouting then; a media Pee Are officer making speeches. Can’t trust an Enclave Em Pee.” The phrases he said gave Sparks momentary confusion before he shook his head; remembering she wasn’t particularly privy to military lingo and jargon. “And by Pee Are, it’s ‘press reveal’ and Em Pee is ‘military police’; acronyms.”

“Oh, okay... well yeah, that’s how it happened pretty much. At the time it sounded genuine but after getting older and listening to the other ponies they didn’t believe him or his words much. It... was always a sore topic.”

Eagle showed no flicker of emotion but he drove the point home as he spoke low, edged with smugness. “Yeah, since the Enclave has striped entire Stables in mountains down to their frames leaving holes in them I can’t see how a Stable would be nervous around them.”

Sparks had a short moment of shock as she looked up to Eagle with a smirk gracing her lips. She spoke lightly as her nostalgic melancholy was thrown aside and she trotted further ahead to see his face below the brim of his hat. “Was that... sarcasm?”

Eagle sniffled a little as her expression deepened into a wide smile, her eyes beaming with wonder, and he gave a short grumble as he had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, it was.”

She gave a short chuckle that squeaked a little in her voice, and she shook her head as she looked out into the desert beyond. “I didn’t know you were capable of humor.”

Eagle bristled a little under his hat; his brow furrowing in a small anger as his subconscious chastised him for leaving an opening for what he had for so long attributed great pain to.

The building blocks of a friendship.

He had been alone, truly alone, for nineteen years, with only acquaintances and passing partners in business in that time. He had all the proof he needed that close ties represented only opportunities for The Wasteland to snatch them away, almost always violently. He sighed again, deeper, with an air of coldness that permeated from his demeanor as he tried to fortify his severance policy; his guiding principle against ever feeling that pain again. He did so by saying no more than a few words in response as he trudged on withSparks beside him.

Only... he knew that after however long this ‘adventure’ of theirs would last they both would become very well acquainted. They would travel, fight, bleed, and camp with each other from town to town until they reached their destination, and after a subtle subliminal noise, one that sounded every bit like a dull clattering laughter of dry and hollow bones, resonated in his mind he realized that the very thing he despaired was already underway. He peered over to Sparks’ wide smile as she trotted beside him, feeling a lingering emotion.

It was a mixture of detestation... and pity.

*** *** ***

As they continued trudging west of Crystal City, with the low tuned radio on Sparks’ PipBuck strumming away in a wide array of jazz pieces, a few of which she reveled in hearing again as it began to replay older songs she had heard before, she had tried to make more small talk with Eagle as per his previous request. Only... she found his reception cold and inattentive; like he was distracted or just plainly not trying to feed the conversations he himself had requested.

It left a small confusion in her as she asked about it, if he was alright and such, but he only responded with ‘Yeah’ and ‘I’m fine’ as they trotted on with nary a present concern beyond traveling. The desert spaces, true to their form, were empty and void of anything besides an errant patch of dead grass and clumps of mushy soil that threatened the spoiling ofSparks’ relative cleanliness in her now slightly dust matted armor from the chilly breeze.

She couldn’t for the life of her figure out why he had suddenly dropped the desire to speak. There wasn’t a single distant reason or threat she could perceive, and more importantly if there was one she suspected Eagle would spare no time in pouncing on the opportunity to meet or avoid it.

His casual and controlled, yet strangely loose stride was even, broken only by the miscellaneous pieces of scenery as his stride lengthened or shortened to avoid it with no visible reason she could perceive for his ignoring her. She felt at a loss, shaking her head before chastising him in a curious voice. “I thought you wanted to talk, are you sure you’re alright?”

“I said I’m fine.”

Eagle’s blunt retort carried an edge of agitation that she heard plainly, and she continued speaking in a subtly derisive tone as Eagle was having a small skirmish of thoughts all his own. “Well talking is a two way street you know, and I’m sure you don’t want to ‘go mad’ as you said.”

“Alright!” Eagle snapped with flaring eyes and a grimace, and he scoffed as he shook his head; letting slip his intentions in a phrase he didn’t catch before it was too late to rectify. “Great Wind girl, we don’t need to be friends for thi-”

Sparks balked inside with a shocked expression, halting in her stride and fixing him with incredulous eyes. Eagle merely closed his eyes realizing his words as he sighed, but continuing his pace as she spoke shakily. “Well... I’d like to be friends...”

Eagle’s callousness burst forth in his deadpanned expression as he stopped, drooped his head before turning back to her and he measured how to salvage this in a favorable way, yet found none. “You ought to be concerned more with staying alive than making friends, and to be perfectly honest I don’t need any. I’m concerned with one thing, and one thing only.Surviving. Our little ‘quest’ of yours will set me up for life most likely.”

Eagle’s words hit Sparks like a mallet, and his subconscious had a mixed reaction to her injured expression; satisfaction and self scolding claw in claw. He shook his head in short motions, wondering how to make the best of this, but grimly he thought that nothing he could say could satisfy her empathetic nature. He could only be blunt, and hope it would be enough.

“I had friends before... long ago.”

She gave a small scoff of surprise that flared Eagle’s expression to a low burning agitation, and she gestured her hoof in a wave as she spoke accusingly. “Well where are they? I don’t see any-”

“They’re dead; killed by raiders and slavers, or just Wastelandic cruelty like starvation and exposure.”

His empty, emotional void of words sparked a subtle embarrassment in her mind as she reeled herself in, a mixture of bafflement and shame shifting in tandem with her growing blushes as she crossed a foreleg with a hoof in humiliation. “I’m... sorry Eagle, I didn’t know...”

“And you shouldn’t. The price of friendship in The Wasteland is having it torn away; violently.” Eagle sighed again, but the broiling emotional fatigue plateaued and he couldn’t stop the wave of emptiness as he continued, harshly, grimly enunciating his words with an echoing hollowness. “Seeing your... loved ones and partners getting cut down, or dying from accidents you can’t control does nothing but torment you for the rest of your days girl. Better to not have friends than to have and lose them.”

Sparks, at that moment, had subtly learned a great deal about Eagle without context as to why he felt that way. She didn’t believe him, at all in any stretch, and she valued every small friendship she had made thus far; ones with Tato Sundae, who was far behind them tending to the restoration effort of Crystal City, Mayor Madame in the same boat, Vadim and his brother Mikael, and even back in her Stable where her parents and close knit group of friends and relatives numbering perhaps no more than eight or nine, depending on the day.

All in all, she could probably count at the least four or five well trusted friends to her judgment, and while she would be torn if she lost them to wicked circumstance she refused to believe it would have been better off to never having known her parents as an orphan instead of what had already happened; stepping hoof out of Ninety-Six and, most likely, never seeing them again.

The last thought was sobering as a solemn frown spread across her lips, as she truly faced the prospect, but in her eyes she resolved, perhaps subconsciously, to prove Eagle wrong, voicing it just so with a fire that Eagle subtly dreaded. “You’re wrong, and I’m going to prove it.”

“Will you now?” Eagle scoffed lowly with a grim smirk across his scarred beak, and chuckled darkly as he turned around and continued trudging off to the west. “I’ll give you a month before you change your mind.”

*** *** ***

The Following day, as she had come to realize the accuracy of Eagle’s words, had driven Sparks at the very least stir crazy.

Almost twenty miles of trudging through the dreary and mind numbing deserts of beige and brown with it’s mixture of drying, cracked patches of dirt and dust mingling with the last remains of rain in mushy mud clumps had made her tense yet loose in a whole body soreness that demanded rest to alleviate. She wondered if that soreness, which she felt from horn to hooves like her muscles were to simply give out below her along with blisters forming from her boots and saddlebags, was the worst part of the entire experience; she was wrong.

The only stimuli over the hours were the standard fare of Wastelandic terrain, with little more that a stray insect of rodent crossing their paths time to time. In fact, the single most interesting thing that Sparks had seen was said by Eagle to be little more than a flying radio, something called a ‘sprite-bot’ off in the distance. Ravenous for something to do she simply shook her head as her eyes drooped in the midst of the standard fare of wandering thoughts; her late morning conversations with Eagle, the radio’s news broadcast, the Alicorns and Lilac, the Enclave’s sky-tank that perched in Crystal City shortly after their departure, her Stable...

All of it from the traveling ruminations she hadn’t yet had the displeasure of facing before in earnest. Sure she might have had hours of time to think back in Ninety-Six, but usually she was no more than a few steps away from other ponies for conversation or games, or a steady stream of work to cut away the boredom, giving her something to focus on.

Here? All she had was walking in one direction for the entire span of the dreary sunlight hours as the radio lazily sang in the background. She licked her chapped lips as she stared about her.

Her surroundings, the horizon, the sky, her own traveling companion, none of them prodded her to anything but half recognized thoughts after a time; a flurry of ideas and ponderings that left as soon as they came like rain in a sprinkling shower. It had the same effect on her too, with a numbing effect of a drizzle with the splashes and pitter patter of her thoughts and desert breezes congealing into a single sonorous droning in her ears that even her hoofsteps and rustling barding only added to.

Finally with an exasperated shake of her head she groaned and cleared her throat, and she spoke for the first time since shortly before the filtered noon sun reached its place high above the world. It was close to evening according to her PipBuck, and she realized how long they both had gone without the slightest word between them. “Where are we going anyway, besides west I mean?”

Eagle showed no emotion as he trudged on, and despite his concentration on the road ahead he had been thinking of that same question for the last two hours, maybe more; going back and forth between ideas and weighing his options. ‘Their options’ he corrected himself with a grimace. “To the next town, hopefully not literally if we can keep our provisions in check. Keep to the road west and hit the next town and stock up there.”

Sparks looked down at her PipBuck’s map as she kept pace, and seeing the little green arrow signifying their position in the world with Crystal City behind them east she traced along the western lines seeing if she could find any places close by. She saw the lines of railroads to the south and a few scattered highways, and in that great expanse around them on the map she saw no other major markers by the map’s reckoning, save for a single square declaring a town in their path close by.

‘Good Neighbor’, nestled next to a place the map had named the Galloping Gorge.

The square on the map was greyed out slightly, leaving a transparent pale green marker that listed the town’s name below it when she panned the cursor to it. Much like the dozen or so other squares on the map, a majority greyed out in the same fashion, they all told her what she had already known; that she hadn’t been there before.

Despite it though, Sparks recalled what Eagle had said about the place earlier to Green. It was a ‘rub dirt in it town’, a phrase that Sparks only felt a strange hesitance in her ignorance of the meaning, with it being placed somewhere nearby a ‘Galloping Gorge’ a rough one hundred miles west of Crystal City the only other information present.

Her PipBuck once again left her slightly mesmerized, with the functions and seemingly hidden programs and magics the little clunky devices held in store for ponies who never knew half of them, one such as its ability to synchronize something as simple as mapping data off of the arcano-tech spell matrixes of other devices that bore them. Only now she wondered if the device had divined that information from her Enclave escort, or from Eagle’s conversation with Green; a possibility that meant the machine was capable of more than she once thought.

She shook the wandering thoughts and turned her attention back to Good Neighbor, and spoke to Eagle with curiosity in her cute voice. “What about this ‘Good Neighbor’? It’s close by; somewhat.”

Eagle reared his head back and his own questions of how she knew about it so casually were doused as he saw her nose buried in her PipBuck’s map. Recognition flashed dimly across his face and he turned back to the road ahead, speaking low and grimly.“Hopefully not. Didn’t leave that town on the best of terms with the locals. Besides, they don’t have much in the way of trade except for chems; little supplies of the sort we’ll need.”

Sparks’ eyes fixed on the little greyed out square of Good Neighbor with a small curiosity as to why Eagle was reluctant to go there; again she corrected herself as she wondered how exactly bad the terms he spoke of were. From her short experience with him so far she mused it couldn’t be pleasant, but she held out a small, admittedly foalish, hope to the contrary.

She didn’t even bother with asking herself, or Eagle, what kind of town Good Neighbor actually was as she scanned across the map westwards, and with the yawning chasm of a dark green screen, barren of any markers beyond topographical lines with rails and roads cutting lines between the seemingly sporadic hills and mountains, she spoke her curiosity once again. “Well what’s after that? I don’t see anywhere close by.”

Eagle went over it in his head for a short moment, pouring over what precious few towns were scattered across the Northern Wastelands, once again agitated by that very question. He spoke, half to himself as he thought aloud, lowly. “I was hoping to stop by a few of the small farming villages. Major towns are practically nonexistent and we’ve already left one of them. We’ve got Crystal City, Good Neighbor... and Van Hoover on the coast, but that’s at least two hundred and sixty plus miles from Good Neighbor considering the terrain. We are going there before we dip off into the Undiscovered West, at the very least for information.

“Beyond that... I know there’s a ranch roughly a day’s travel south-west of Good neighbor, run by a family called the ‘Shears’. All I know is that I don’t want to have to stop in town, which leaves us a little tight on supplies.”

“What if we have to though?”

Eagle gave a short scoff as Sparks dipped off into another bout of twenty questions, but a small resignation made him glad it was in light of something useful. If nothing else, it helped him plan and coordinate their journey with discussion, bouncing ideas back and forth aloud instead of simply allowing it all to congeal into an over stressed mash of thoughts. “There shouldn’t be a reason short of bad luck to force us to Good Neighbor, but... maybe since it’s been over a month since I left, things could have calmed down. Unlikely though, given how the town is.”

Sparks strode in silence for a spell, contemplating whether to ask about what had happened there that has him trying to avoid that town like the plague, before a sudden idea sprung forth that drowned her desire to know. She spoke somewhat optimistically as she remembered one of their recent acquaintances, despite the mare’s cold attitude. “What about Green? If she made it maybe she could help us out?”

Eagle sighed briefly, but admittedly wondered if the ex-Hoofington ganger could indeed help them out if the worst comes, or would. It would have been a few days at the most since her arrival there, and if they had to go there maybe a few more for her to settle in somewhere. For a moment, however, he wondered where she would. She was a ganger, and that meant most likely she would join in with a group somewhere; strength in numbers and such as well as old habits dying hard.

He hoped she would be smart and join the Gunponies, or at the very least keep herself away from the business end of the politics there, another nasty detail fueling his desire to avoid the town altogether, if he had to call on favors. She was useless dead, or buried to her eyes in that town’s problems.

In the end he simply shook his head of the thoughts, and merely cemented his wish to keep going on what little useful supply they had garnered from Crystal City, hoping all the while that he wouldn’t have to find out if Green could help them either way. “If we’re lucky, we won’t have to find out. No telling if she would be useful or not.”

Sparks looked down at her map again with a slight deflation of the ebbing enthusiasm she had. For a moment she knew that Green would help them, but she wondered if she truly would as her preconceptions of the world and ponies were dashed by a subtle worry that grew the longer she strode the chilly and mud riddled open Wasteland. ‘Would she’, she thought, and she hoped she would if the need arose.

She cleared her throat with a few grunting coughs as she moved on to her next question, and the curiosity in her voice was plainly spoken. “Well... what kind of ponies are these ‘Shears’? Do you know much about them?”

“Never went there in person myself, but if memory serves their cattle ranch sees decent business selling and breeding brahmin, so we should be able to trade our junk for lighter essentials.”

Eagle hoped so, at least. While he was glad that he and Sparks had some rations and munitions to spare, the sheer amount of clutter in both their saddlebags made the journey tiresome. Between the gifts of small parcels like ‘iguanas on sticks’, according to the ponies’ explanations, and cartridges for firearms neither of them had he wished to convert their useless goods and scrap to hard caps; at the very least anyways. He preferred useful supplies, but he wouldn’t turn down anything more tangible than half of what clinked and clattered in their nearly overfull saddlebags.

He was used to traveling light on his paws anyways, and Sparks, he scowled as he thought, wasn’t used to traveling long distances at all as a Stable dweller; never mind with a load of supplies and the like. He wondered how far her feeble and light build could carry her long term under such strain, or the fights and mad dashes sure to follow as he remembered her breathless gallops when she tried to keep up with him before. A passing thought alongside the rest spawned in his ever churning attempts of planning made him curious if they could find her some lighter armored barding that wouldn’t impair protection.

What she had was excellent considering the wasteland’s options, being a mixture of hard plated composite combat armor and ballistic fiber plates covering a decent amount of her body. Regardless of effectiveness however if she can’t wear it and maintain some semblance of endurance into the coming weeks or, fate forbid, months she would need a lighter suit of barding.

His scowl deepened as his eyes drilled the distant horizon, thinking harshly about how of all the escort jobs he’s been landed with Sparks was surely the worst, and breathing deeply he returned his wandering thoughts to the Shear’s family ranch as Sparks interjected her questions through his thought processes with worried tones. “You sure you’re okay Eagle? You get these... random spells of quiet and it’s starting to worry me a little...”

“I’m fine, just... We’ve got a lot of ground to cover... and I’m only used to worrying after myself. Haven’t had to travel with company this far in decades.”

At first Sparks nodded, accepting Eagle’s response as they trekked on to the west, but after a few moments her eyes beamed with a silent glee that gave a strange levity to her stride.

‘He’s... actually worrying about me! Or, at least... in some fashion...’ she thought, and despite the wondering of how exactly she let the thought comfort her that perhaps Eagle wasn’t as cold as he portrayed himself. He cared after her, at least for her safety, and with a growing smile that graced her lips she took heart in it.

That it was a start.

Footnote: Red Eagle level 22

Sparks level 4

Next Chapter: Chapter 17: Wandering Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 44 Minutes