Chapter 3: All gone

Waking up that morning made Red Eagle remember many old feelings; nostalgia, aches, regrets, and chiefly among them was the hatred of being hung over.

It wasn’t as he remembered at all, but immensely familiar all the same. His head throbbed with his pulse as he wished for the world to be quieter than even the dead silence around him. His face was wet with saliva and soured water on the impromptu bed, nothing more than sodden blankets on the floor, and a terrible queasiness that wrenched his stomach threatening vomit. Most importantly though his dreams, or nightmares rather, either didn’t plague him that night or he was too wasted to remember them. Ashmaker was right, and he both thanked him and cursed him altogether.

As he looked around with hazy eyes half blinded by the putrid sunlight from the window, clashing with deep darkness, he noticed one odd thing. He hadn’t vomited at all. Silently whispering thanks to whatever kept him from retching after too many moonshine shots he forced himself to sit up and look at the rest of the room around him, his bones popping and muscles aching. It was your standard fare for wasteland furnishings, an assortment of rubble and broken odds and ends like shelves or chairs, all stained with a century of negligence.

Rubbing his eyes and temples, he looked at his bottle of Yak brother’s moonshine next to his ‘bed’ to find it half empty. The sight stumped him immensely, he felt like the whole bottle should be empty, but remembered he hadn’t had the mixed pleasure of alcoholic comforts in more than several years. He presumed that before he went and emptied the bottle he had passed out insensate, or he had the wisdom beforehand to not drink it all and had forgotten.

Suddenly, his instincts flared as something primal tugged at his numbed senses. Whether it was a noise or something he saw was irrelevant, but he jumped to his sluggish limbs with his knife drawn as his eyes and ears cut through the hangover’s interference. Focusing harder he heard what sounded like shuffling noises, or skittering? He couldn’t distinguish them presently, but he knew he was not alone. His fears were almost immediately doused when he picked out of the corner of his eyes a radroach that had passed from one hole in a wall to another, weaving in and out of the rubble in the room.

“Gaahh… shit…!” the uncharacteristic shaking slowed down to a weakened wobble as he relaxed, realizing how foolish he was being. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all, he thought, but he figured not having nightmares was a good tradeoff somewhere in his judgment.

He sighed and his head throbbed, wincing he sheathed the knife and made his way out to the middle of the room. His belongings were set up in a corner opposite of his ‘bed’, and he saw what was presumably his original idea of a sleeping arrangement. An actual bed, not in great condition perhaps, but better than where he had found himself.

Rubbing the side of his sore, damp face in confusion he shook the thought away and winced again followed by a curse at the jerking movement. Sluggishly and methodically he donned his gear and secured it all to his body, turning on his PipBuck as he pulled it from its canvas satchel. A cacophony of hushed electrical noises sounded as he felt the magical aura bathe him invisibly. The alert screens next to the griffon outline showed the medical terms of what must have been called ‘fucked up’ and ‘hung over’ in common parlance.

Dehydration, being one of the alerts, was easily remedied, and he fished one of his steel canteens out and drank deep of its metallic, but cold and wet water. Thankfully not irradiated or anything else just as bad, the medical display told him how much he would need to get himself back in the green end of the meter it displayed. Nutrition was down a bit, but not dangerously.

Other than that the machine told him nothing new. He pushed the Automaps button and first confirmed where he was at. Some place called ‘Pony Joe’s’. Even in his current state he knew Pony Joe’s was a popular prewar coffee shop franchise, but for some reason raiders or other unpleasant company frequented these stores. He vaguely remembered some surprise the night before for finding it empty, but couldn’t recall more than that.

He panned out the map display to see the region he was in, and grimaced to find that the closest settlements were a good ways off; at least a week’s trot for a determined caravan at best. On top of that he was looking for work, and half of the towns he knew of nearby didn’t have work the last time he was there.

Only two or three were left to scout out but only one was there he knew would have something at least. Unfortunately, it was a town he didn’t have the slightest desire to see. Left without any other options he sighed deeply, and girded himself for the journey east. Getting his bearings outside of the Pony Joe’s after sweeping the area for hostiles and finding none, he stared once again at his PipBuck’s map with a sense of dread before he put it into rest mode and back into its satchel. With a sluggish hung over stride he began the long walk.

The long walk to The Crystal City.

*** *** ***

Crystal City was a large prewar town north of the Canterlot ruins and south of the old Crystal Empire before the northern regions became nothing but a massive irradiated ash and snow desert; it began construction right before the war started in earnest back in the day and was surprisingly well preserved; despite the bombs, even with Equestria’s habit of over designing structures to last.

The city itself was struck by several balefire bombs but the defenses protected it from being directly destroyed, at least according to the stories. It was afterwards when the shielding spells failed that the massive bombardment on Canterlot and surrounding regions nearby enveloped the city, the flames and shockwaves drowned and crushed its ponies into a whirlwind of cinders.

All of the buildings facing Canterlot acted as an improvised shield to the rest of the city, and were all but demolished by the onslaught of heat, magical radiation, and force. The rearwards buildings were all but untouched by the war’s devastation, and the half finished structures riddling the metropolis either still stood defiantly as bare skeletons or long ago tumbled back to the ground from too much pressure from the elements. The inferno a century ago had burnt them all to a blackened crisp on one side, now a dark grayish black like a memorial to the millions dead to the south. The north facing surfaces still retained some of their silvery prismatic sheen, despite all odds, that was once renowned in the Crystal Empire. The mixture of hues created a gradient of silver and black colors, all framed by the beige dead wasteland that surrounded it.

The town itself looked dead, completely dead, at the first glance. This wasn’t true Eagle knew, as a small populace had settled in an old horse-hockey stadium, half a decade ago. A hundred at best lived out decent lives cut off from the worst of the wasteland’s ravagings. They had a decent crop to feed themselves, some trade with the closest towns provided the most of their necessities, and scavenging provided the rest. Even the most obstinate raiders were held at bay by the natural defensive qualities of living in the stadium; along with the distance it held from the comparatively heavily populated southern reaches past Canterlot.

‘The Canterlot ruins alone probably kept raiders and slavers from coming north, with the mountain range cutting off all other easy access’ Red Eagle had been told once, and he shared the sentiment. The only raider threats were what gangs had settled locally, and this city had very few real problems with gangs larger than maybe a dozen ponies. Without a large enough force they stood no chance at a direct raid of the Crystal City, so they limited themselves to attacking caravans, which rarely ended well for the raiders around with the protection that the City afforded them.

The raiders around here were slowly dying of metaphorical anorexia, which Eagle found ironic, and usually only hosted ponies that wanted a taste of a wild and dangerous life like an old romanticized outlaw tale. They got it in spades however by throwing themselves on the weapons of the guards or local wildlife. Once, or more importantly if, Crystal City gets bigger it may be a target large enough for a southern raider group force to push north, or another from beyond perhaps, but that would be a long ways off in both time and cost effectiveness.

For now, the town enjoyed relative peace, and they wallowed in it like pigs in mud all but oblivious to the dangers as Eagle understood.

All this spoke of a decent place to settle down, a town with little problems and a good framework to build up from there. In a manner of speaking, ‘too good to be true’ is what many ponies thought when they heard of it. But those more acquainted with its history remember it used to be a town of opposites. Instead of cheerful and safe settlers, it was once host to the region’s largest raider and slaver gang to ever plague the north decades ago that used the exact same defenses the town enjoyed today. One day they simply disappeared, gone to the wind in a mixture of ashes and corpses as the town was bathed in blood and flame left as a husk.

It sounded like a fever dream of an addict flying high on moon dust, but no one could argue that they weren’t gone, or whether or not it was a good thing. Something going from terrible to promising so abruptly is what kept everyponies’ eyebrows raised, with hesitation in their steps to head there and see. It was only until recently that the town was even settled, and as word spread the wishes were confirmed.

The raiders were gone, truly gone, and everypony who heard the news cheered and celebrated their demise as best they could.

For Red Eagle though, it only reminded him of pain with every beat of his heart. He could almost still smell the fires burning, hear the screams. He was here, almost twenty years ago with three other griffons, and he knew with perfect clarity how the raiders had died. He also remembered who all had died. The raiders were cut down and blown to pieces, the ground made slick in black viscous blood and guts. The traders that were there dealing with the slavers that camped there, both parties given the same treatment. The families of the raiders and traders who were caught in the crossfire, despite their terrorized pleas for mercy.

Those families’ children…

All of them. ‘May the Wind sort ‘em out’ is what Gren had said then, and the rest followed suit as a grief ridden terror. He probably still would have said it if that homicidal griffon had survived the battle.

Over the years Red Eagle had said many things to himself to justify it, but now it was only one of many numbed regrets. He avoided the city like the plague, but now he had no choice. His rations low, canteens nearing dry, with no other town in sight he sighed deeply and trotted towards the town.

*** *** ***

The city seemed to remember him and let him pass with hesitant reluctance. Not the townsponies, as there were none to be found yet, but the buildings themselves. With every step of his talons and paws the color clash of the buildings seemed to stare at him with apprehension, if it was even possible, and old wounds began to twitch across his body. A near seamless knife wound on his left shoulder; a burn on his right foreleg; a few bullet holes in his wings and one in his belly. Many more began to twist and itch as he remembered how he had gotten them, and the buildings themselves seemed to know as well.

The road stretched out before him into the city as an assortment of burned buildings and rubble flanked the passage into the heart of the urban carcass, and low winds that breathed through the surviving alleys echoed like the whispering shouts of forlorn ghosts.

Ahead of him he saw signs, large plywood sheets that stood upright into the air with white marks painted on them. At this distance he couldn’t make out the writing, but the arrow and jewel shaped drawings were clear as day. Crystal City’s settlement was to the right, where he remembered it lay near the town’s center across a large road of the city hall. Nearby that was a sort of prewar market district that was once hosted dozens of shops of a staggering variety, all reduced to empty shells from scavenging over the years. Among them, he remembered, was a library that had been nearly gutted by the raiders and traders all those years ago once a gang incursion was dealt with.

Overall, once a tall and proud town; destroyed in a blaze of terror, defiled, destroyed again, and now hopefully looking toward a brighter future. As he trotted on he looked to the side of the road and saw the lone sun-bleached skull of a unicorn in the dirt alongside its sibling bones, whose horn had shattered and a large hole opening the bowl of a skull, revealing the hollow inside. It almost seemed like it was smiling.

Hope, sadly, was something the wasteland took pride in shattering with a cackling toothy grin.

Averting his eyes back to the road ahead, he trudged on to the city. He felt as if he was being watched, and probably was; if not by the living, then definitely by the dead. Shivers shot through his bones as the idea passed his mind, and shaking the thought he did the only thing he could do for either.

Keep trotting on, despite all.

*** *** ***

At the main gate of Crystal City, he realized contentedly that the ponies within the settlement took their security seriously. Beyond seriously were his actual words, as the once wide open entrance to the stadium now had a massive metal gate, painted olive green, hinged on two immense winches shaped like a pony’s forelegs that, to his judgment, lifted the giant behemoth. Next to it, sat what looked like an old ticket booth with an intercom system or radio perched on top of a desk inside.

He looked around and didn’t see what looked like cameras perched outside the door or any other methods of secret surveillance, but he knew just because he couldn’t see them didn’t mean anything.

He internally shrugged and trotted over to the booth and entered, looking inside he saw nothing of worth besides the little machine on the desk itself, as it looked like it was slaved over to ensure it worked with wires and all sorts of redundancies were built into the somewhat polished housing. A single glowing orange button rested below a large grated speaker, and when he pressed it nothing happened at first. Then for a few seconds it howled to life as it came to speak in much softer tones without the feedback.

“Welcome to Crystal City traveler! We are hoping that your stay here is a long and fruitful one, but before we let you in we need some information to verify you aren’t a threat to the town. We apologize for the inconvenience.” The strangely beautiful mare’s voice that spoke sounded gleeful, but it had an almost practiced manner. It held an edge of repetition like someone had written out a welcoming speech and asked someone gifted in speech to continue prompting everyone who went a touched the button day in and day out.

Eagle stood there at the intercom and cleared his throat, speaking in his best ‘I’m not going to be trouble’ voice he had, and probably failed miserably. “Alright, verify away, Miss...?”

“Oh! Right, my name is Desse, short for Decibel Ensemble. Thank you for asking me my name; you’re the first in a long time to care enough for introductions!” the voice’s stammers sounded cute, even for a bodiless voice, and Eagle had smiled faintly at the intercom having probably made somepony’s day. She flustered and cleared her throat, seeming to recognize she had gone way off script. “So, may I get your name please? For the paperwork of course.”

She spoke cheerfully again, and amended the statement quickly as she flustered. Eagle shook his head with his slim smile. “Red Eagle miss, a pleasure.”

He seemed to hear a gasp about on par with a whisper, and she spoke rapidly as if racing to finish the meet and greet. “You mean THE Red Eagle? Griffon Mercenary and all that jazz!? I didn’t know you were still in the area! You are more than welcome in town friend! If you’re here looking for work mister, then you shall find plenty of it here; we have priority caravans here needing expert guards; we’ve got plenty of ‘tough nut’ location scavenging contracts; we have... well, a whole pile of it. There’s a freelance post board outside of the Highstands tavern up in the... well, higher stands of course...”

She stammered a bit, realizing the obviousness of the statement. She shortly continued her high speed list of things she had to say after a quick breath. “We also have a post board in the market place inside the bar. If you’re in town on other business I’d ask that you please... erm, see the Mayor first. She is interested in getting some professional help; her office is directly above the main gate inside the stadium’s studio.”

He stood there blankly staring at the intercom like he didn’t believe what he had heard, he was looking for work sure but this seemed... convenient; even a touch ironic. He mentally shrugged and shifted in his armor. “Alright Desse, I’ll be sure to take a look at the uh... post boards and marketplace.” He nodded at the intercom, and looked at the giant green slab. “And the Mayor as well, so how do I...” He was interrupted by a cacophony of mechanical noises and could have sworn the gate was wreathed in a dull prismatic glow common of unicorn telekinesis, only it was like a gradient sheen of two different colors. He noted the door’s winches still worked, but maybe even with that the door was too heavy for the system alone.

It would make sense that several working together made this short work. He cleared his throat and regarded the intercom with a gesture of gratitude with the best grateful voice he could make, trying his best first impression. Especially since his reputation seemed to be still alive even here. “Oh, that’s how. Thanks for getting the door Desse.”

“Oh, think nothing of it Mister Eagle. Enjoy your time in the Crystal City!” her voice sounded genuinely pleased. He thought it was odd, a place actually happy to see him. Regardless he left the ticket booth and made his way in front of the giant door now slowly creeping up making a terrible racket.

Once the door was halfway up the cacophony stopped and the glow disappeared, light flooding the inner chamber revealed five ponies; three Earth Ponies and two Unicorns, one of which was a ghoul with her off color, stringy, and patchy orange mane and near colorless beige flesh stripped and desiccated revealing the muscles beneath in spots. Her milky white orbs for eyes looked at Eagle with a vacant stare, typical of ghouls who lacked the physical characteristics to show all but the most extreme emotions.

‘They aren’t ghoulphobic’ he thought, ‘must be pretty accepting’. Each one wore some variant of white and grey camouflaged combat armor barding and each had a weapon, and the Unicorns were panting slightly and hoisted their weapons with magic and shook their horned heads, Eagle guessed to shore up their focus. The other three wore impressive battle saddles with simple, but nearly pristine weapons attached to large caliber ammo bins. He recognized them and their threat immediately.

One of them was a white earth pony mare with a teal mane cropped short over her deep blue eyes, presumably the leader with her star shaped badge attached to her chest plate, and she spoke up trying to be friendly. Yet the suspicious tone that edged it Eagle was far more familiar with. “You aren’t gonna be trouble, right? We run a tight ship here and we ain’t gonna suffer a repeat of what happened at Good Neighbor those days ago.”

She shifted in her armor, tensing when Red Eagle stretched inside his, and he put on a coy look with a grim smirk that may have put the guardsmare at ease. He knew however such a look had an affect on ‘clean and well-to-do’ towns. She cocked her head keeping her battle saddle at the ready.

“No ma’am, I’m only here to look for work, and as Desse told me there’s plenty of it. What happened at Good Neighbor was...” he paused, looking up into the cloud smothered sky trying to come up with the words while twirling a talon through the air. “...a misunderstanding.”

He grinned, and the guardspony looked none too thrilled with his choice of words. “You mean to tell me THAT was a misunderstanding?” she coughed a bit as she laughed, and then fixed him with an even stare. “You won’t be having any of those here. As I said, ‘tight ship’ and all.”

He mentally groaned and donned a flat look of irritation that set all but the leader of the guards back a bit. “No, I don’t know anyone here. So unless one of you tries to kill me or fuck with me this will go well.” He shook his head as he fixed the gaurdsponies with a cold, malicious glare. “If anyone does try and fuck with me, I assume there are laws here about self defense?”

“It depends on the meaning of ‘fuck with’, but I take your point.” The guardsmare glowered, but relented in her questioning and sighed. “Welcome to Crystal City Red Eagle, please don’t be a nuisance. I don’t think the town could survive it if your reputation is to be believed.”

He cocked and lowered his head until the brim of his black hat half covered his eyes, and donned a wide smile in his chipped and cracked beak. “And what is my ‘reputation’?”

The guardsmare fixed him with a calculating stare, and then a frown covered her expression as she began mouthing silent words seeming to try and piece together the least insulting way to frame it. “Well... it’s uh, bloody. That much I can say.”

They both shared a long stare that seemed to bother the other gaurdsponies as they subtly squirmed in their barding, and sweat showed on their brows save for the ghoul’s as several had darting eyes unsure of the entire situation. Then Eagle donned a smirk and nodded his head. “Well rest assured, I’m not planning on proving my reputation while I’m here. Only looking for work.”

She seemed to take that earnestly, then shrugged her shoulders and kicked something on her saddle that he presumed was the safety. She turned around and waved a hoof at the group behind her. “He’s good, back to your posts Gentlecolts.”

All of the gaurdsponies threw their hooves up in a salute, and the Earth ponies, minus the leader among them, cantered their way up the stair case to the left, eager to leave as Red Eagle entered the cavernous entrance of the city. The two Unicorns just took their time, with the ghoul trotting back over to a small booth beside the stair well, flicking a lever over with her hoof bringing back the cacophony and returned next to the other. Using their magic together they screwed up their faces, easing the door back to the ground and once it was closed they let out the breath they were holding, sighing in exertion and wiped their brows with their hooves.

Red Eagle regarded the two with a smirk. “I’m impressed.” They looked at him with a touch of confusion and immediately the ghoul mare beamed with glee and spoke in a voice identical to Desse from the intercom.

“Why thank you mister Eagle, I practice my telekinesis every day to make sure I can be of help around here! Can’t put ALL the load on Earth pony engineering, especially this crane system!” She put her hoof on the massive olive door as Eagle’s wide eyes looked at her from horn to hooves. “Parts are rare besides, and the scavengers aren’t too interested in mechanical systems this specific. It’s all ‘ammo’ and ‘food’ and ‘blah blah blah’, can’t get decent technical stuff these days!”

“You’re Desse?” He asked in a voice edged with uncertainty. She picked right up on it and a small sad frown crept across her rotten lips.

“I know, I know... ‘Didn’t expect you to be a ghoul’, and ‘but you’ve got such a beautiful voice for one’. I get it a lot... but don’t worry about it, I’m used to it. Usually ponies are polite but the 'face for radio' jokes get dull.”

Red Eagle just shrugged a bit and took in the sight of her, grinning a bit. “I actually think you’re more beautiful than most ponies I meet.”

That made her milky white eyes go wide, and if it was possible for a ghoul to blush she did it in spades. She stammered in her cute voice as she folded one hoof over her foreleg, a sad smile as her expression. “And why would you think me, a rotten and filthy ghoul who looks like this be beautiful?”

She looked at him with curious eyes and he could swear a tear trickled down her face, as if she didn’t believe at all what she heard. He just smiled as warmly as his scarred beak would allow. “Most ponies I meet couldn’t be polite despite being as pretty as the princesses of old themselves. You? You’ve a personality that outweighs your... unfortunate looks. Trust me; I’d rather be an ugly ghoul than an ugly griffon.”

He shook his head with a sad smile at the clichéd nature of his words, edged with a deeper truth than anypony present recognized. The leader of the guards cynically scoffed at his words, seeming to agree with him that it was the corniest thing she had heard in years. Desse beamed at his compliment and practically levitated towards him and gave an intense, squishy armored hug as Eagle’s eyes went wide at the unexpected gesture.

“OOOOH thank you thank you thank you!! That’s the nicest thing anypo- erm, any creature has said to me in years!” she beamed as she started to tear up and released him; her stringy mane flew back and forth as she shook her head, sending tears flying. Rubbing her eyes with her sleeve she looked up with a delighted smile. “I’d even kiss you if I wasn’t, well-” Eagle inhaled sharply as he tensed up. She looked at his fearful face, his eyes wide with... something, like he was staring beyond her and being uneasy. As he relaxed she cocked her head with a worried expression with a coy smile. “What? Would that be bad?”

He just shook his head and spoke in a low, solemn voice. “No, just... not for the reason you think.”

He tried to smile at her, but he couldn’t muster the strength to. She reminded him too much of Jade, same bubbly personality, just in a different form. He turned around and with sluggish, but a methodical pace he walked upwards towards the town’s entrance. He didn’t dare look back to Desse as his mind furiously tried to bury the feelings she had managed to dig out of him, and was failing miserably.

‘It was a bad idea to come here’ he thought, ‘and not for the reason I thought either.’

*** *** ***

Crystal City was enormous despite the relatively small populace within. They all bustled about the market square that made its home in the center of the large oval shaped stadium, and deals with the traders flew as fast as they could speak. Commerce flowed in this town as the settlers bought or sold essentials and traded for hard goods with a mix of barter and bottlecaps.

In one stall he could see a food broker trading meats and grains to ponies whodelighted in both; the idea still perplexed him that some ponies would eat meat at all, but he supposed hunger is the best sauce. Another stall he saw a weapons vendor that seemed bored by the one or two customers there -looking like he was trying to explain rocket science to idiots. There was even the complimentary scrap merchant that looked a bit crazy in the eyes as the mare hollered things he couldn’t distinguish from the rest of the crowd’s melding speech.

Beyond that, it was nothing short of a massive and rusty spot welded town of cooperating and coexisting ponies. The wet dream of most survivors by the wasteland's standards, and probably the largest in the region altogether. He could see why they took security seriously, and even with only a hundred ponies, give or take, they had a mountain of unseen wealth that the wasteland’s gangs and such were either ignorant of or were too afraid to try and take; despite the fact the wealth itself lay squarely in the thing they would destroy in the process.

Peace.

If only the ghosts here had left him alone; he might have even settled here if he would let himself, but there were too many horrific memories lurking around every corner.

Making his way down into the market square's fluctuating crowd he felt uneasy with the amount of ponies around, not to mention the fact they parted in his path without the need of a soft shove or pleasantries. They avoided him without being asked to, as if they knew him or were just plain anxious of mercenaries in general. He had known towns that avoided him for both reasons before and he paid it little mind usually, but this time felt... different, and not in a way he could describe.

Everypony there, even the merchants when he had traded to them all eyed him with lingering stares that were unusual. Only two spoke in sentences larger than five words; the easy going chems dealer and wide eyed, now confirmed crazy, scrap merchant in tones that were different than the rest. He figured because it was the fact the former regularly tested his merchandise and the latter was, well... crazy.

Around the town’s layout he saw that the market place was indeed the town’s center, both figuratively and literally, and around it like ripples in water rows of ramshackle welded together sheds of rusted sheet metal and large wooden panels made up the body of the city’s houses and other establishments. One he could see was an impromptu school house and library all in one with a large sign in mismatched neon lights; another he saw was a water purification plant with what looked like a large domed reservoir for keeping the precious substance safe and secure and the town hydrated for harsh summers.

‘All in all’, he thought ‘raiders would be here in force if this city let them.’

He continued beyond to the higher stands and found out the hard way from the glares and haughty scoffs of the well dressed ponies within that these were the supposed palaces of the city’s ‘elite’, meaning the rich or politically powerful and old families that had been here from since the town was in its infancy, which still meant rich to him either way.

Rich ponies to him meant fat purses, and those meant chances of high paying jobs. He had to suppress a scowl as one glowered at him from hat to talon and measured his entire wealth by the dusty and stained attire he wore. Trotting onwards to the Highstands tavern he saw a small café in front of the establishment and its levitating robotic spider armed waiter that served the rich snobs of this society with a voice programmed to match their egos. Even the robot seemed to glower at him with its three orbs for eyes on stalks, judging him immensely.

He just scoffed at it as he looked upon the notice board for any good contracts. He found out that these higher stands ponies were incredibly tighthooved with their caps and seemed to only want jobs of the ‘worthless’ variety performed; which shouldn’t have surprised him. Bodyguard jobs being the most frequent, or chaperones for going down into town to show off their wealth and power to the peons below. None of them were to his liking at all, especially if it meant meandering about with one of these conceited ponies. He sighed as he read one flowery contract after another, with the pay next to nothing; he shook his head and went to go back into the lively in comparison town below.

Outside of the ‘Vadim and Mikael’s Dug-Out Bar and Inn’ in the lower stands at nearly sundown he felt much more at ease, in a sense. The ponies here were few but still skeptical of him, but they didn’t seem to judge his entire character on his apparel either. He mentally shrugged, hoping that even the bar wasn’t a bust, and entered to find himself smothered in familiar, classic scents of pungent booze laden breath, sweat, and nauseating cigarette smoke that seemed to permeate in all bars, and lining the long hallway the overhead beacons of smoky light cut the darkness in harsh contrasts.

Down the hall he saw on the wall a large plywood sheet with papers of various colors and sizes, and closing the distance to read them in the bright light above he saw the writing on them varied from illegible to barely understandable. Some sounded promising at a first glance until one thing or another told him to move on to another posting. Usually his better judgment told him to, but some details seemed... off. One contract offered way too many caps for something so simple, another offered too little for something too much for the amount displayed; even worse were the ones listing the location of a gang of raiders or other undesirables and the payment for removal was whatever they had on them.

‘Someone never learned what a contract really was’ he thought as he scoffed at the piece of paper. One in particular was just plain old fashioned bizarre, offering sexual favors for checking out their junk collection. He just shook his head, glowering at the board in disbelief that an entire town didn’t have some work worth doing at all. He really hoped he didn’t have to meet with the mayor, he knew something was off about Desse’s extension of the invitation to her office.

When an official needed a ‘professional’ that almost always meant an assassin or something equally complicated that required plausible deniability, and that alone painted the Mayor in a bad light if she needed to work through a proxy. That would require him to do it on the sly if it was that sensitive of a job, or leave town after doing it which was a dangerous option -as much as he wanted to.

Out of the shadows, however, he heard a reverberating and foreign accented voice further inside the bar that confirmed his fears. “Sorry to say, my griffon merc friend, that work around here is dodgy at best. Not reliable source of work, that’s why post board still covered in them.”

Eagle turned his head to find the voice’s owner, and it was an oddly familiar massive behemoth of a thickly dark brown furred yak wearing the stony expression popular among his people; he took it as a glowering or irritated one from his experience with them. The giant scratched his chin with a hoof and chuckled deeply. “Even for one well equipped as you, I doubt you’d find work worth the brahminshit for the pay.”

Eagle stared at him with a level gaze and looked back at the board with disdain in his eyes. “So I take it I should just pack up and leave then?”

He didn’t like the prospects one bit, but if there wasn’t work here, what choice did he have? The yak laughed with a deep and echoing mirth and approached Eagle to stare at the board with him. “If you’re strictly mercenary, yes. No work worth a damn here in good number of seasons. If you’re looking to stay here permanently, which I doubt, then sure you’d find work with the caravans or guards. But I take it you’re not ‘stay at home’ type. Too much dust in coat for that.”

Eagle nodded, still staring at the board. It seemed more and more like the only option remaining was to go see the Mayor. An idea which he began to come to terms with. “I need to ask the bartender for some information.”

Eagle turned to face the yak with a level expression, who stood there with his own unexpressive glare with a raised brow. “Well he’d be glad to answer some -depending on the questions- if you first bought drink.”

Eagle glowered at him and scowled. “What are you, his advertising committee?”

The yak laughed with wall shaking mirth and turned around heading into the bar. “Me? No! I am owner of this fine establishment!”

Eagle looked at him with a bit of surprise, buried it and followed the yak deeper inside. He sat on a low, circular and ratty red stool before the bar, which sat all but empty of customers. The smog of smells permeated through the dark air as he looked about seeing no more that four or five ponies around the rest of the inn, two of which were a mare and stallion sitting passed out together rather warmly, drooling onto each other’s shoulders in a deep sleep.

The place itself seemed asleep in a way, passed out from a drunken stupor like those two. He looked up at the few rotating fan lighting fixtures, half of them were either bulbless or broken, and those that did work slowly churned the air in the low light cones below them; creating tendrils of smoke wafting through the air.

From a few of the lights he saw a number of half ruined prewar posters of different things along the walls. Several were ministry posters, one was a poster to what looked like the home team that played in this stadium, the name long forgotten by the smudges and fading of time. The Earth pony wearing the chromatic padded armor of the sport was in mid charge on ice skates and grinned widely, wearing an expression like it was the time of his life. Eagle just stared emptily at it, and averted his eyes back to the yak. The giant of a bartender settled behind his bar and picked up a glass, eyeing it intently and judged that it was clean enough for use.

Setting it down on the bar he waved a hoof at the selection of bottles, each dirty or not completely full in various measures, and spoke once more in his booming deep foreign voice. “So! Pick your poison my griffon friend, I hear your people are fan of harder liquors than most ponies can stomach, it would be pleasure to offer someone capable of something real something... erm, real!”

Eagle just sat at the bar with his forelegs crossed on the counter. “Depends on what ‘something real’ costs. I’m in town for caps as it is.”

The yak’s face seemed to scowl a little, but he couldn’t completely tell. “The cheapest I’ve got of my top shelf is Yakyakistanian vodka, running twenty caps a bottle, and a cap a shot. The bottle will get you questions answered.”

Eagle sighed, mentally shrugging he fished out twenty caps from his anorexic caps satchel in his pack and set them down onto the bar. The yak reached into a cabinet below the bar and pulled out a semi clean and sealed, clear as pure water bottle labeled in the strange, unfamiliar letters of the yaks. Setting it down on the bar he swept the caps into a bin and shouted off to the room’s side, straining Eagle’s ears as he did.

“Mikael! Get in here!” a smaller, but still brutish fellow of a yak entered the bar that resembled the larger one in almost all ways save for his younger appearance. Less wrinkles under the eyes, and his coat seamed a bit neater; perhaps it was just well kempt. He spoke in a higher pitched accent of his larger twin, but still plenty deeper than most voices he’d heard before.

“What is it brother?! You know I am plenty busy doing nothing but minding the rooms! It’s hard job being bored all day, never mind your constant demands!” they both seemed to somewhat enjoy the shouting fest back and forth like it was some long tradition, very well could be knowing their people. The larger yak demanded he take the bin and put it with the rest, the smaller one demanded he do it since he was so busy being bored, to which the larger one wailed sarcastically that he was trying to help him have some excitement in his life.

In the middle of their shouting match a thought hit Eagle like a mallet to the head, and he dug into his pack and found the now quarter full bottle of the Moonshine he still had. He looked at the label and eyed it carefully, examining the uncanny resemblance in the yaks before him and the children’s drawings on the bottle. “You yaks make this stuff?”

His interruption was at first held in a loathing scowl easily read on their faces, but when they saw the bottle in Eagle’s talon they both seemed to grin widely; basking in the recognition. The bartender spoke quickly and proudly.

“Why yes! Best yak moonshine south of Yakyakistan! Made right here in Crystal city to curl the sensitive snouts of weak liquor puking ponies!” He held his forelegs wide and laughed with his usual mirth that all but rattled the foundation of the bar. “If you drink it yourself, I can see you enjoyed it well enough friend, good to meet non-yak who can appreciate it for what it is!”

Eagle just scowled as his tongue remembered the vile flavor with a quiver, and dismissively gestured at the bottle with his other talon. “I think it tastes like shit personally, but it... ah, helps. Acquaintance of mine gave me a bottle.”

He paused for a moment, dreading the future nights he would sleep, and equally dreading the mornings after as he contemplated buying another. The yak seemed to take it well though, and he thumped his massive chest with a hoof and spoke earnestly. “I can welcome good honesty, even if it ridicules the nectar of my people. If it helps you, then tell me who recommended it to you and I shall consider offering you my prized brew.”

Eagle just sighed as the yak cocked a brow and smiled widely, not expecting him to know the name. “That would be Ashmaker, out of Good Neighbor. Leader of the Gunponies there.”

“Very well, he shall be receiving bundle of my finest for the reference, and you shall get your first bottle free my friend!” The yak seemed to either know exactly who the name belonged to or didn’t care. He reached below the counter and whipped out a full bottle and set it down in front of him.

Eagle stared at the moonshine bottle thoroughly surprised, then to the vodka bottle and back to the widely grinning yak. “You might as well take the vodka back then; it never did me any good beyond a sanitizer.”

“Then you may keep it for such an occasion, or whatever strikes your fancy; even spontaneous charity to some drunkard. Believe me when I say I can’t get rid of the shit fast enough.” Eagle glared at the yak questioningly, and the yak amended himself. “I mean, I have whole room alone of it. You’ve no idea how much of this swill Yakyakistan made before war, let alone after. Making vodka with grain... grain!!” the outburst made Eagle clench his teeth, but he nodded and looked at the bottle for a moment, then fixed the giant with a glare speaking accusingly.

“If it’s so bad, why did I pay twenty caps for it?” the yak just laughed and shrugged his huge furred shoulders.

“Bit of deception, maybe. You paid twenty caps for me to answer questions, think of the bottle as surprise gift.” The yak looked up around the bar and back to Eagle. “Speaking of which, I believe you’re still waiting on those answers. I doubt you want to chitchat here until nightfall. Then you’ll need fifteen caps for room from my dead beat brother!!” the smaller yak bellowed back at him, snapped from his empty bored gaze.

“Vadim! I am not dead eat; I pull my weight around here!!”

“If only your rental rooms made more than my glorious bar, then you would have right to talk nonsense!!” Eagle waved a talon, shook his head with squinted eyes from the sheer volume power these two had.

“Alright! Let me ask my questions before you tear the bar down!” Vadim looked at Eagle with an appraising look, and then laughed again with that shaking mirth as Mikael matched it with a hint of agitation. Eagle couldn’t tell if he laughed at himself or his brother, maybe both as he left the bar proper deeper into the back rooms.

“Oh friend, pay our banter no mind. It is admired amusement for yaks, if it was ever serious the whole of Crystal City would know it beyond doubt! Now, what’s first question?”

Eagle sighed as he relaxed deeper into the stool, eyeing the new bottle of moonshine in his possession. He put it away into his pack and cracked open the old one. Vadim watched him as Eagle poured himself a double shot tumbler and glowered at it with hesitance. Then with a single motion he held it up in a mock toast, downed it, a mixture of swallowing and gagging followed that sent shivers throughout his body.

His mouth was nearly sucked dry instantly by the practically pure alcohol, and a heat flowered in his stomach. He grimaced and smacked his beak, rolling his tongue within it with clenched eyes. After a few seconds he shook his head and opened his regretful eyes, and looked at Vadim who just stood there, patiently.

“I need to ask you about the politics here, among other things. The short version if you could.”

The yak looked a bit taken aback by the choice of question. Eagle figured the usual questions were local landmarks, which stores were good for their caps, or maybe even the occasional life advice. Regardless the giant yak fixed him with an even stare that lengthened the silence. Finally, Vadim breathed deeply, hoisted a glass to the bar and poured out some of his own moonshine.

“Oh, this will be good... ask yak of politics and whew! Furniture breaks.”

Eagle adjusted himself in his seat and took his hat off, revealing the short plumage of reflective navy blue, grey striped feathers sweeping back down his neck; his scalp smooth like a raven’s. Setting the hat down next to his bottle as the warmth of the moonshine began to touch his talons and toe tips, and e cocked a brow at Vadim with a half grin. “That bad here?”

The yak merely nodded his head as he finished filling his glass to the brim and downed it with far less hesitance that Eagle had, as well as no visible squirming from the flavor. “That bad everywhere these days, but here? Only reason I’m still here is my brother.” He turned his head with an outcry. “He’s YOUNG and STUPID!”

As Vadim looked back to Eagle with a squinty eyed, wide toothy grin, and there was a muffled retort that was barely understandable. “But he’s good guy, and I’ll be damned if I’m to just abandon him to fending for himself. This town provides safety, good trade, clean food and water, all things one could want.” Vadim screwed his face up as he amended his statement. “Except yak snow perhaps, but whatever. Necessities I mean.”

Eagle looked at his bottle of moonshine and knew he was going to regret this night in spades, but he could afford the room when it came down to it. He needed the sleep really, and his body was still sore from the last week’s journey from Good Neighbor. He poured himself another double shot and repeated his last reaction when he downed it, although with much better recovery this go around. Smacking his beak he spoke in a course, throaty voice from the drink.

“So what’s the hellhound in the room?” The yak just gave him a flat stare as he too poured himself another full glass and downed it. “The politics?”

Vadim smacked his lips and grimaced angrily, and eagle knew from his low voice that this genuinely angered Vadim. “You hit metaphorical nail on head, here in Crystal city there is so called ‘problem’ with ‘racial division’. Racist brahminshit is what it is.”

Eagle just stared at Vadim as his typical mirth and demeanor disappeared, and understood why it was a bad topic as he felt the second shot of the moonshine reach his limbs in full strength. His body eased into the stool even deeper; his head beginning to feel the alcohol’s pressure. It took effort for him to remain sitting up, but he still felt that odd fuzzy sensation. Vadim scowled even deeper as he violently took a pull from his bottle itself and licked his lips.

“Any creature around that isn’t pony is usually looked down on, the more foreign the more disdain they’re paid. We yak brothers are only ‘tolerated’ since we own bar and have impeccable selection and service! That and only other bar here serves the snobs of higher stands.”

Eagle’s face twisted as he began to connect the dots through his day, and he now recognized the expressions on the ponies’ faces. It wasn’t fear or uneasiness of who he was, but what. His reputation only augmented the already existing contempt, and that twisted something up inside him. He had been in towns where one or two ponies had disliked him like that, but this was the entire town it seemed.

His eyes narrowed as he matched Vadim’s scowl and he poured another double shot and downed it with little resistance as he began to understand just how many of the ponies he saw wore that apprehension. Only a few of the locals and the foals and fillies looked at him differently, with gaping wonder of probably the first griffon they’d ever seen. “That explains the cold reception I got from the town.”

Vadim huffed deeply and drilled a far wall with violence-against-furniture promising eyes. “Yes, let me be the first to apologize about them, I cannot do it for them but better than leaving it unsaid.”

He took another pull of his bottle, with only a third remaining, and Eagle glared wide eyed at the sight and was amazed the yak wasn’t either passed out or retching; or destroying the town in a drunken whirlwind of destruction. Shaking his head to focus, his world began to spin somewhat as his balance played inebriated tricks on him.

He settled himself and anchored himself on the bar. “So what does the Mayor do about it?”

That question seemed to make the yak’s coat inflate as his eyes went wide with unbridled hatred. His body trembled as he tried to control any outburst that resulted in smashed bar fixtures, and he spoke in a nasty, course and low voice that arched in intensity from syllable to syllable. “That bitch is one who started it four years ago! Got elected after promising better defense, better trade, better everything! One of requirements down the way was exclusive access to town, and then with steady speeches and half truths she managed to get whole town intolerant or isolationist, basing most of it on old prewar notions!”

In the middle of his rant he slammed the moonshine bottle down on the counter, splashing a bit out of the bottle and to Eagle’s amazement didn’t shatter it. “The first to go were Zebra settlers, fearing they were part of some... ultranationalist Zebra force -besides fact any would be long ways away. Next were ghouls and other mutants in general. I’m glad that Desse is still here because she’s ‘useful as radio personality’ -and knows how to use gun better than bigots do. Then the Yaks and Griffons denied unless they bring ‘job opportunities’ and trade goods that ponies require. Before long, no creature but pony will remain here, maybe they will even target themselves eventually unless town changes!”

After his flaming rant he reached behind the bar and hoisted a heavy wooden chair with a mighty exertion that soon flew across the bar and smashed into splinters against the concrete wall beyond. That ripped a few ponies’ attentions away from their drunken stupor and they glared about with confusion at the mayhem. Huffing and panting the immensely angered yak slowly calmed himself and took a pull off his bottle. Emptying its contents in a single motion he threw the bottle in the last guttering cries of his anger and it too smashed against the wall.

Eagle sat there numbed by the sudden history lesson, but wide eyed of its contents. If he knew the town was this bad he would have kept going down the road and never looked back, but he knew that wouldn’t have left him many options. “Well shit, that makes things difficult.”

Vadim shot him a gaze that was still edged with anger, rolling his eyes. “Of course it makes shit ‘difficult’.”

Eagle shifted in his chair, and shook his head as the second and third shot hit home. His entire body buzzed with that fuzzy sensation as he fought to stay sitting up, and flexing his paws and talons he feared when he would have to walk again. Donning a scowl he spoke in a low coarse tone.

“Well yeah, but when I first got here Desse answered the intercom. After we introduced ourselves she shot off several business openings, the boards I mean, along with an invitation by the Mayor for ‘professional work’.” The statement made Vadim’s face screw up and scowl. “Now... if you know what that usually means from leader types, it’s something they can’t do themselves. It may mean nothing, but I’m beginning to wond-”

Vadim cut him off with a hoof wave and glowered around the bar, speaking in oddly whispering tones. “Careful friend, if there is something foul about this, best to keep close. I know for fact without proof you were shadowed today by the guards. Just by effect of being griffon, I know they might be watching you even more closely if they want you to do ‘laundry work’. Bad enough I caused scene just now, worse if conspiracy talk is overheard.”

For a few seconds Eagle pondered the thought, nodded with a flat face he looked at his moonshine bottle, now nearly empty save for several shots in the bottom. He stared at it with a flux of feelings, like contempt, dread, and even hope maybe somewhere buried in the realization he wasn’t going to stay there long.

He swigged the last of the drink without even an ounce of a shiver with his completely numbed tongue and mouth, and slowly spun his stool around to glower out into the bar. It sat unchanged save for the pile of wooden splinters and glass shards around said splinters; even the ponies that slumbered drooling on each other remained as they were.

The biggest difference was it was hard for him to pick out specific details as they blended together into a sort of blurry blob -despite his normally sharp eyes. He rubbed them with a sluggish talon and looked back at Vadim, speaking slowly with a hint of a slur in his coarse voice. “How much for a room again?”

The yak looked at him appraisingly, and just sighed as he chuckled deeply. The sounds resonated in Eagle’s ears like an echoing drum from a long distance away as his voice cut through his building stupor with the same effect. “Right now? For you? After our little chat you can have room free tonight, only this night though. Can’t let brother get agitated by my boundless generosity.”

Vadim seemed to smile, but Eagle couldn’t really tell with the way his vision wavered. It wasn’t hard to see, necessarily, but hard to focus beyond staying upright in the stool. He made the effort to turn back around in his stool and grab his hat, putting it on cocked to one side at first but straightened it out a bit. The yak laughed with a very reverberating mirth that seemed to shoot through his whole body, now fuzzy and impossibly warm and tingly.

“At least griffon is still conscious after fourth of bottle, I expected you to be drooling on bar by now!” Vadim said, and Eagle just grinned in an uncharacteristic sense of pride and spoke in his slurred voice.

“Didn’t you hear? I am Red Eagle, and no bar will ever defeat m-” he was immediately confused as his entire world shot from looking at Vadim, or trying to rather, to an odd vertical view of the floor with a sudden rising sense of distant pain in his head. He heard some even more distant deep voiced laughing as he laid there taking in the cold semi-clean floor as his world began to swirl away bit by bit. The last thing he heard was the voice of Vadim next to him cackling furiously in a volume even he couldn’t miss as drunk as he was.

“Red Eagle or not, bar or not, floor beat you senseless.”

With a silent agreement of his last faculties, the last of his coherence was washed away by darkness, and in that cold depth he found something strange.

Silent peace.

*** *** ***

Held in stasis for what felt like an eternity he floated there, bodiless in an almost aquatic miasma of thoughtless, formless dreams as distant nebulous stars hung lazily in the ebony haze, he could feel a tinge of distant pain. Heartache perhaps, but their piercing effect was lost like muffled sounds in water within that endless shadowy sea. There was a single, bright but soft orb of brilliant light that rested itself near him, and it cradled him gently and longingly like someone would a lover. He could feel something akin to a kiss on his beak if he had one in that embrace, and a single warm tear from the star that intermingled with one of his own. In that dusky gloom there was only a single question he could mutter to himself.

Why they were crying?

The dull light merely held him tighter in the embrace; the question disappeared in forgotten, indistinct whispers that made him smile.

Then, he truly slept at peace.

Footnote: Red Eagle maximum level

Quest perk achieved – Party Foal

With recent alcoholic adventures with yaks, your limit has been learned the hard way! But you’ve learned a few tricks! You get +25% extra resistance to alcohol’s negative effects and -50% addiction chance! As an added bonus, the effects of the hangover last only half as long!

Next Chapter: Chapter 4: By any means Estimated time remaining: 11 Hours, 6 Minutes