I sat with my back pushed up against a large half broken chair. The chairs legs on one side had collapsed, leaving the whole thing slanted to one side. Across the room, I could see a large gaping hole in the wall that had been blown apart by some explosion during the battle earlier today. Outside I could still make out the forms of ponies rummaging through the debris, looking for loved ones they had lost. Every once and a while I would hear the manic wail as somepony found who they were looking for, often broken and crushed beneath the heavy rubble.

Despite the structures broken disarray, a lone brick fireplace had miraculously managed to stay perfectly upright and intact. I had spent a few minutes desperately trying to light a fire to warm up the defiled cottage before Pyre had marched in and quickly lit it up with a flumph of her flamers. Before I could thank her, she sulked out of the building without saying so much as a word to me, grumbling to herself and trying her best to hide the massive red claw marks that now races down her face.

I sat with the large Big Book of Science in my hooves as I eagerly turned page after page, hoping to use the escapism of the wonderful book before me to let me leave the depressing world I was currently stranded in. The last five days had been without question the worst days of my entire life. What had started with the traumatic invasion of my Stable had led to a seemingly endless string of horrors just as evil if not more so than the one before. The final destruction of Stable 25, finding out about my murder of the raider foals, the nightmares below the surface and finally the senseless violence of the Hollow Shade Massacre.

It was all just too much.

A ragged and broken looking pony coated in a thick layer of blood and muck stumbled into the cottage, limping heavily on his right fore hoof. He slumped down next to the fireplace and went limp, the fight had taking far more out of him than he had ever had to give. With a great deal of effort, I levitated a tattered blanket over to him and softly draped it over his almost lifeless form. The ponies of the Hollow Shades would need a lot of healing over the next few days, and not just for the physical wounds that had accompanied the bloodshed.

My thoughts turned back to the battle. The graphic image of a young colt being torn apart by a huge artillery weapon was still very vividly imprinted into my mind. It had all been so pointless! All of it! None of the ponies should have needed to die!

I could feel myself start shaking as more and more memories started flooding my mind. Slavers heads being blown open by blasts of my shotgun, raiders gnashing at me with sharpened fangs and twisted daggers, Boulders final seconds as a stray bullet lanced through his chest, blood spewing from the wound and across the charred pavement. They all flashed through my mind, refusing to leave me in peace.

I looked back down at my book defiantly, trying my best to simply not think about it. Push all the raw hurting feelings deep down where they can't hurt me. What was done was done, there was no going back now. The most I could do was try and deal with it the best I could, and the only way I knew how to escape my feelings was through books.

“Brisk and Pyre just left for Stable 44,” Xayah said as she pushed open the door to the cottage and trotted in. I didn’t bother asking why she used the door at all since half the building’s walls had been obliterated in the war.

I looked up, I saw her walk over to stand beside the sleeping pony by the fire. We were going to need all the supplies we could. If this Glowing Sea was as dangerous as Toffee had told me, we were going to be in for a real hell of a time. “And how are they holding up? Brisk and Pyre, I mean. I haven’t talked to either of them since our meeting with Toffee.”

“Brisk is doing well,” Xayah started, trying to warm herself up by the fire. She was shivering, both from shock of all that had happened and the deathly cold night breeze. "Save for a little pain in his fore hoof, he managed to get out with less wounds than most ponies."

I nodded, taking in the information. “And Pyre? How is she? She hasn’t seemed herself since that raider attacked her."

She hesitated for a second before answering. “I am not sure. Something is weighing down on her mind quite a lot,” Xayah said quietly. “She is refusing to talk about what happened. Whomever this Viscera is got to her.”

The whole deal with the raiders wasn’t sitting well with me. This was the second time I had survived an encounter with Las Pegasus raiders on sheer luck alone. “Why do you think Viscera turned on the slavers and let us all live?” I asked, the memory of Viscera’s defeat over Pyre just as prevalent in my mind as the other horrors I had witnessed.

She simply shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know,” Xayah looked up from the fire towards me. “And You? How are you doing?”

“Just uh- reading a book is all. I’ll be fine,” I lied, lowering the book slightly and looking away from her. I didn’t really want to talk about my emotional state at the moment in fear of shattering into a million pieces.

Xayah cast me a weary glance. “Was it not you who told me that this group of ours has been hiding enough of our own issues from one another?” She cocked her head to the side a little, the motion slightly reminiscent of the movement of a griffon.

My face dropped. “That transparent am I?”

Xayah shook her head, her face somber. “You do not need to be transparent for me to know you need help. Nopony is simply fine after war, and you were already in a rather emotional place.”

I grumbled, not wanting to meet her eye. “It’s just… it all seems so pointless! All this violence! Why is it even happening! Wouldn’t it be better for everypony if we all just got along!” I blurted, my fears and doubts coming to the forefront of my mind. “I can’t even figure out what it will take to make it stop because I can’t for the life of me figure out why it has to happen in the first place!”

Xayah was silent for a moment, rolling my outburst around in her head for a bit. “I do not know why it has to happen, and I do not know why it is happening, but I do know you will make stop it,” I looked up at her as she spoke, my Amber eyes locking with her emerald ones. “You’ve come a long way Amber. I do not know where this journey you are taking us leads, but I am confident you will lead us safely to the end,” Her voice was steady, clearly believing every word of what she said.

I threw my hooves up in the air, letting my book fall onto the chairs dirty cushion. “But what if I don't?! I wasn't good enough to lead the Stable! My Cutie Mark alone is a constant reminder of that! I’m about to lead all of you through an incredibly dangerous, extremely radioactive wasteland to some crazy MAS building with who knows what inside!” I exclaimed. “What if one of you-” My voice caught in my throat, not wanting to even suggest such an idea. “What if one of you dies, Xayah? I don’t think I would be able to handle that…”

Shaking her head, Xayah limped over to me and hopped up next to me on the big chair. Somehow the chair didn’t collapse completely under our combined weight. “We will be fine. We will get through this together.”

Sighing, I put my book away and cuddled in closer to her, using her warmth to fend off the cold gusts of wind that ripped through the crumbling structure. “I’m just overwhelmed I guess,” I admitted, both to Xayah and to myself. “So much is happening that I don’t understand. I just- I don’t know… sometimes I wish that I really had died with everypony else back in Stable 25.”

Xayah’s eyes went wide at my words. She sat up a little and looked me in the eye, her expression hard. “Don’t say that! We will make it through, we will!”

I shook my head before resting it between my fore hooves. “Sorry, sorry. I know I shouldn’t think that, I just- Well... With everything going on, I guess thoughts about just escaping it all can be kinda easy to fall back to,” Neither of us spoke for a while after that as we sat and listened to the crackle of the fireplace and the far off howls of hurting ponies. After a few minutes, Xayah let herself back into a resting position, her muscles relaxing slightly.

“Seems like this whole wasteland is collapsing around us,” I finally muttered, looking out at the ruins of the Hollow Shades. “It’s suffocating,” My hooves tightened around Xayah.

“Perhaps we should do something when this is over. Put all this adventuring on hold,” Xayah suggested innocently, trying to lighten the mood.

I tried to smile. “I promised Pyre we’d stop at Tenpony Tower. There’s a cheese shop there that she really wants to go to,” I felt my mood brighten a little at the silly idea of the rough and tough raider Pyre Blaze eating fancy cheese in some high class establishment.

Xayah chuckled beside me. “Yes, that would be nice. I heard they have a spa there too, might be nice after all our hardships as of late.”

I blinked at her a couple times, trying to put meaning to her words. “What the heck is a Spa?” I asked, my interest peaked. I think I had read a book that mentioned a spa once, but I couldn’t think of anything past that.

Xayah shrugged. “I have no idea, but I’ve been told it is very relaxing.”

I couldn’t help myself. I found myself giggling at the whole thing. Fine food, relaxation, a raider and ghoul free day with no fighting in sight. It seemed impossible. “No adventures for a whole day huh? Sounds like Brisk’s own personal nightmare,” I chuckled. “Bet he’d be trying to escape the tower within the first hour of being there.”

“Pyre probably couldn’t spend a whole day without killing somepony anyway,” Xayah joked, her stomach rising and falling as she quietly laughed.

I sighed, letting my foalish giggles subside. “Thank’s Xayah, I needed a good laugh. It feels like I don’t do it enough anymore.”

“You don’t, and you should laugh more. You have a very cute laugh,” Xayah stated flatly, not even a hint of sarcasm in her voice. I blushed, but I didn’t bother rejecting the statement. I felt fine with it for once.

Some warm and fluttery feeling was gnawing away at my stomach. The feeling wasn’t all that different from the churning rage I had come accustomed to over the past few days, except it felt a little softer and almost soothing in a strange way, if not a little nerve-racking. I looked down at Xayah as she cuddled in close to me, the warm feeling only seeming to grow.

I had felt this before, not all that long ago while I sat beside Brisk in Friendship city, overlooking the gloomy wasteland…

Xayah opened up one eye and looked up at me, seeing the confused and distant look that had crossed my face as I silently looked down at her. “You alright?”

I nodded quietly, a lump forming in my throat. I looked away quickly to hide my blush. “I’m fine. Just thought… yeah…um... I'm fine.”

I shook the idea from my head. Maybe something was happening here, but everything was so confusing right now that I wasn’t in the proper mindset to make that kind of judgement. I’d figure this out on a happier day, when I could really think all this through with a clear mind.

Quietly, I cuddled up to Xayah and let my head rest atop her chest. I could feel myself slowly drifting off to sleep to the soothing rhythm of Xayah’s slow and calm breaths. We had a long and dangerous journey ahead of us tomorrow, but if all went well, perhaps this nightmare might all be over soon.

I really hoped it would be...