Memories

My head was pounding, and my mouth was dry. The ground underneath my muzzle smelled of mildew. That was all I knew as I opened and rubbed my eyes, finding myself in a large messy room, lit through the outside windows. I turned onto my back and massaged my temples. Where was I? Why did my head hurt so much?

As I got up, momentarily dizzy from the fast motion, I felt a jolt of pain in my right back ankle. Lifting my head, I hit it on the staircase I’d apparently slept under, and got a bout of vertigo while my left ear rang. I groaned loudly. Stretching like a cat to relieve some of the soreness from sleeping on the carpeted concrete floor, I cursed my past self for putting me in this predicament. My back satisfyingly popped in several places, but the ache remained. My stomach grumbled.

This episodic amnesia was getting ridiculous. Not only did I not remember how I’d gotten here, I’d also seemingly not eaten in a while. When Candy came back, I would ask her to give me some of our food. Unless we were out? That would certainly explain why I hadn't eaten. Somehow, that didn’t seem like the right answer.

“Ugh…” I grunted. I really should tell her about this, shouldn’t I? When I see her again, because this can’t continue. I was scared. Not only because I kept forgetting days at a time, but I was also afraid of being a liability. She had been taking care of me ever since we’d left the stable, and I couldn’t bear making her worry for me even more. Or was I making it worse on her by keeping my condition secret? I couldn’t tell.

A shocking thought crossed my mind—what if I’d already told her? What if she was just used to me forgetting everything? In hindsight, that was very likely. Talking about it with her might just annoy her. But maybe it was necessary.

Actually… where is Candy? Normally, I'd assume she went for her usual morning jog, but something was amiss. She would have definitely carried me somewhere more appropriate to sleep. Or perhaps not. Maybe she had a reason not to? She was a grown-up, after all. Not all their decisions made sense at first glance.

The way I'd slept suggested I'd lost consciousness, or else I would have spent the night somewhere more comfortable. While I doubted the torn couch would have been very cozy, it was definitely more pleasant than the rotten carpet. Besides, there was likely a bed or mattress in another room, somewhere in the house.

While I was lost in thoughts, my stomach grumbled once again, pulling me out of my reflection. This is a problem, and I definitely need to tell her. How long has it been since I last ate? Now that I was fully waking up, I started feeling just how hungry I truly was. It wouldn’t have been exaggerated to claim this was the hungriest I’d ever been. Well, if I didn’t just forget the other times, I guess…

I took another look around the living room. All around me, many things lay strewn about; ruined books, several broken vases, a glass bottle. Tipped over, damaged furniture also littered the room; not just bookshelves and cupboards, but also half a dozen chairs. The shattered remains of a glass table lay in front of the couch. I'd seen quite a few old world living spaces that scavengers had treated poorly, but this had to take the cake in terms of destruction and chaos. It seemed like a battle had taken place here.

Whatever the reason for this chaos was, it didn't matter now. I desperately craved some water. Peeking through every doorway attached to the living room, I eventually found a bathroom. Stepping up to the sink, I stood on my hindlegs, placing my forehooves on it. In this position, my jumpsuit dug into my thighs and shoulders. Had it always been this small? Wait no, I've probably just grown. I turned the handle on the faucet and placed my muzzle into the stream and drank for a good minute. As unappetising the water looked, I couldn't care less. Even my PipBuck's ominous clicking did not prevent me from enjoying every single swig. Even the dirty aftertaste was no deterrent. Only once my thirst was quenched did I shudder at how utterly disgusting this water was. Gross!

I would have to kill some time before Candy came back. I would need to find my saddlebags if I wanted to do some reading. What time was it, anyway? I'd assumed early morning, but the light pouring in was a bit too bright for that. Turning my attention to my PipBuck, I realised that my Eyes Forward Sparkle was inactive. The clock revealed that it was early B-shift. That meant the day was more than half over already. What. I tried to reactivate my EFS with the flick of a switch, but my horn ignored my attempt. Another burn-out? How in Equestria had that happened? I switched it on using my right forehoof instead.

The interface blinked into existence, and, to my relief, I noticed I was entirely alone. However, a location marker appeared in front of me.

My thoughts returned to my predicament. Something was definitely wrong. Too much was out of the ordinary. A bad thought crossed my mind. What if I'd gotten separated from Candy? The state of this place certainly seemed to indicate she wasn't around. What if something had happened to her? No, that’s extremely unlikely, I reassured myself.

An idea popped into my head. What if the marker on my PipBuck was where I was supposed to meet up with Candy? That would certainly help explain her absence, wouldn't it? Wouldn't explain why I didn't have my saddlebags. Though maybe I had just left them in another room? Why I’d do that was beyond me, but it wouldn’t be the first of my past self’s actions that I had trouble understanding.

Before I started to search for them, I took a look at my PipBuck's map, curious about the location of that marker. Manehattan, about fifty kilometres south of here. I was surprisingly close to Fillydelphia, where Candy and I had been heading previously.

This effectively left me with two options. Either find the marker in Manehattan, or head to Fillydelphia. I'd overheard that the latter was a dangerous place that most ponies avoided. I didn't know what made it bad, but I knew I didn't want to find out without Candy. However, since Fillydelphia was so much closer to my current location, I was tempted to drop by, just to check if she was there. No, if she really was there, I wouldn't have placed a marker somewhere else. I need to trust past me, no matter how inconvenient her choices seem to be sometimes.

I decided to spend an hour looking for valuables in the house, both as a way to kill time while waiting for Candy's potential return, but also because I would need everything I could find if I wanted to survive the trip to Manehattan. After that, I would get going. I just hope this dizziness goes away soon, I thought, rubbing my ear.

I ended up finding some Fancy Buck Cakes, but my saddlebags were nowhere to be seen. I hadn't really expected to discover them, but was still disappointed by their absence. Ponyfeathers. I rummaged around the building a bit more, on the lookout for anything that could help me. I picked up an old pair of dusty and hole-ridden saddlebags, as well as two plastic bottles that I filled up with water from the old sink. Still and in a clear container, this liquid looked even less appetising than before. Regardless, gross water was better than no water. I’d replace it with clean water as soon as I got the opportunity.

I ate the entire package of snack cakes, but deemed the portion unsatisfactory. I was grateful to have found it, but still wished for more. The sweet taste had aged surprisingly well—or maybe it hadn’t; all I knew was that I liked it. On top of that, the feeling of vertigo had faded away, and those two details lifted my mood considerably.

Soon enough, an entire hour had passed, and I needed to stay true to my decision. I left the house through the front door, and found myself in the middle of a large plain of dry grass and the occasional dead tree. The road leading away from the house was paved with coloured blocks—a classic for richer neighbourhoods in pre-war Equestria. I glanced at my PipBuck’s map again and noticed the location tag “Stronghoof manor”. The realisation that somepony had owned this place made me idly note the lack of skeletons inside the manor. Maybe they’d all made it to a stable before the radioactive fallout arrived this far?

After following the path for a few minutes, it ended up joining up with another, bigger one. The marker on my EFS suggested I needed to turn left, and a quick check of my PipBuck’s map confirmed that idea. I started walking, thoughts wandering while I observed the wasteland scenery. It was ugly and dead, but there was a certain melancholic beauty to this drabness.

I slowly trotted, trying to make myself as small as possible. My EFS was crawling with red bars behind the trees, and all I could do was hope that they wouldn’t notice me. During the day, there hadn’t been that many of them, just the occasional marker that appeared as quickly as it disappeared. Since the sun had set, however, they started blinking into existence and staying around.

I’d started second-guessing my choice of pathing a few hours in, but now I downright regretted it. The way through forest was a massive shortcut compared to going around it, but even with daylight it was unfathomably creepy. Now that it was dark, it was terrifying.

Occasionally, I’d had the weird feeling of being watched, even with nothing on my EFS. By far the worst scare—prior to right now—had been the vines whose loops I always seemed to step into. Even if I paid attention to where I was going, I still almost ended up tripping over the strange plant with orange petals every other step. If I didn’t know any better, I would have assumed it was trying to trip me up.

Come to think of it, I didn’t know any better. Given how much weirdness the wasteland seemed to be able to make up, it really wouldn’t have surprised me to find a plant that moved to catch its prey. Wait, prey? What would have even happened if it caught me? I shuddered despite myself.

A branch cracked to my right, brutally snapping me back to reality. I almost jumped. Come on, Iron, calm down. You’re not far from the other side. If those things wanted to attack you, they already would have, and long ago at that, I mentally reassured myself, to little avail. I could hear my heart beating like a drum. No, like the entirety of an orchestra’s percussions. Thump, tha-thump. Thump, tha-thump. I tried my hardest to keep my breathing even, but I could barely contain my fear.

Occasionally, I would get lightheaded, and my senses would dull, my vision turning to black. Those flashes of dizziness were different than how my head would spin when my ear was acting up and lasted only a few moments. If I focused enough, I managed to stay conscious through them.

I wished I had Candy by my side. Just her presence would have already soothed my anxiety, but I also knew she was able to defend me. Even the guns I’d carried around but had never ended up using would have been a great way to reduce my worries. As it was, however, I was practically naked and had nothing to fight off those creatures with.

Lyrics formed in my mind, and I desperately wanted to sing them. I knew it might cause the red bars to finally go over to attacking, and that would be the opposite of what I would want to achieve. I’d never had such an impulse before, but I’d also never felt emotions this strong. Not even when I’d broken our family’s vase and feared Mother and Father’s reaction. Come to think of it, I’d forgotten what had happened afterward, but it probably didn’t matter.

It definitely didn’t matter right now. I couldn’t let my thoughts stray. I needed to stay alert. This adrenaline-induced heightened state of my senses was most definitely a boon, but I didn’t know how much longer my heart could take it. The way it pounded made me worry it might just give out at any moment.

As I moved forward, time seemed to stretch out further and further. Each minute of walking felt like an eternity, as I was all too aware of my progress. Slowly, ever so slowly, I made my way forward. Thankfully, at least I’d left the creepy plants behind.

I didn’t know how much time had passed, or how close I was to exiting this dreadful forest, when a shape suddenly jumped out onto the dirt path. It was that of a quadruped that appeared in front of me, snarling. A dog? No, looking closer, I noticed it seemed to be made out of twigs and bark. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by its brethren, the circle slowly tightening around me.

Instinctively, I tried to teleport out of the circle—Wait, how do I know how to teleport?—but my horn refused to cooperate. Darn burnout! Cursing my past self, I bolted forward, and the wolves lunged. With my small frame, dodging their teeth was fairly easy.

Or so I thought, until I felt the clothes on my right hindleg rip, along with my skin. Luckily, the fangs didn’t dig in, and I was able to keep running, gritting my teeth through the pain, tears in my eyes. Why me? Why was my luck always this terrible?

Galloping as fast as I could, my heart was ready to burst and my lungs to catch fire. I was just about ready to fall, when I noticed the trees ahead were thinning. Was I out? The extra bit of hope rekindled my motivation, and I ignored the searing agony in my chest.

Storming out of the forest, I noticed to my utter dismay that the timber creatures were still after me. It made sense; why would they stop following me just because I left the forest for a few moments? I needed to get further away! My vision was slowly turning to black as my heart and lungs struggled to supply my head with enough oxygen. Somehow, my gaze got caught on something.

Turning my head, I noticed the familiar orange light and shadows of flames, flickering in the nightly wind. A campfire? I changed my course, running towards the source. If I was lucky, those things would hate fire! Well, more than other living creatures, at the very least.

Unfortunately for me, my limbs couldn’t take it anymore, and I started slowing down despite my best efforts. Come on, legs! Move! Move! But my body was at its limit. I could hear a beast close behind me. Then, it pounced, its teeth dug deeply into my right hindleg’s thigh, much higher up than my previous wound. I collapsed, face slamming into the dirt. As I was losing consciousness, I heard a pony run over. The pain in my leg lessened, then faded with the rest of my senses.

I woke up to a sharp sting in my leg. I groaned. I was… alive? Had whoever lit the campfire saved me? I opened my eyes, shifting to take stress off my wound. Two pieces of my jumpsuit were tied around my thigh, where the fangs had ripped flesh.

Standing next to me was a small grey unicorn mare, straight blue hair hiding her face, with lighter blue strands intermittent. Having noticed my awakening, she turned to me. With the tone of somepony who wanted to scream, but also had to keep quiet, she berated me, “What were you thinking? Bringing those timberwolves to my camp! What were you even doing in the forest, especially at night? What’s wrong with you?” By her voice, I could tell she was young. And she was livid.

I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was from her harsh words or from the wound on my leg—which I now noticed had been bandaged with some kind of cloth.

“Oh, come on! Are you seriously gonna cry from getting called out on your stupidity? Everypony knows to not venture into the forest!”

“W-well, I didn’t… know…” I stammered quietly. I’d meant to sound louder, but with the sobs that I was trying hard to suppress, it came out barely stronger than a whimper.

“You know what? Whatever. I don’t have the time or energy to deal with you. Just leave me alone,” she said.

Complying, I slowly stood up and started limping back towards the road. Looking back, I noticed a small hut she was likely staying in, its walls lit up by the fire. I needed to find some place to spend the night—and soon, if I wanted to get any rest. Normally, this little cabin would have worked perfectly, but I didn’t want to bother this stranger who’d just saved me.

“Where are you going?” asked the mare. Didn’t you want me to leave? “I didn’t save you just so that you could get yourself killed right away. Stay here, but don’t bother me. I don’t need a helpless child to look over.” I’m not helpless! Well, maybe I was, but that was due to circumstances. “Good night,” she added before disappearing in the shack.

Confused, I sat back down, and my mind started wandering. The wound on my leg was throbbing painfully. I wondered if it was at risk of getting infected. This didn’t seem like a proper bandage. I wished I’d found some medical supplies in the houses I’d stayed in over the nights, but unfortunately they’d all been picked clean, with the only exception being the occasional food.

At that thought, my stomach rumbled. I reached into my saddlebags and pulled out the half-eaten pack of chips I’d started yesterday. I’d hoped to find some more today, but there hadn’t been any mansions on my path today.

Even with frequent scavenging breaks, walking several hours a day was extremely exhausting. I was just not a pony made for constant physical effort. I was fast, yes, but that hardly mattered for walking long distances. Every day, I’d get tired quicker, though that was likely because of how little I was eating. A horrifying thought crossed my mind—what if I ended up too exhausted to move? Would I just… die?

My worry grew even bigger as I realised that walking would get a lot harder with my injury. I was doomed, wasn’t I? Unless I found some proper amount of food, as well as medical supplies, my chances of survival were slim. This seemed unlikely, given how empty all the houses in the region had been so far. In Detrot, this type of food had been much more common. I missed it. I even missed the cold. Or maybe I just missed Candy.

I still didn’t understand why she was suddenly gone. When would she be back? I couldn’t imagine why she would just leave me out of nowhere. I could feel my pulse rising. It was getting harder and harder to believe that she was fine, and that we had just split up temporarily. And even then! Why would she leave me in such a difficult situation? It doesn’t make sense! Why! Why! Why! Why! It was so hard to reason my mind into optimism. Maybe this was a sign that things really were grim? No!

The words that had come to me previously when walking through the forest crossed my mind again, and I sang them, improvising the melody.

"Though I'm worried, I know we'll be alright.
Though I'm worried, I know we'll be just fine.
Even through all this suffering and blight,
Till the very end hope will never die.
I'm not worried, I know we'll be alright.
I'm not worried, I know we'll be just fine."

It wasn’t good, but it did help me feel better. I would find Candy, and I would fix this situation. There was no point giving up hope. Tomorrow would be a new day and a fresh start. I felt myself starting to get tired, growing sleepier by the minute, basking in the warm glow of the fire. Before I knew it, my eyes were closing on their own.

To my surprise, I woke up inside the shack, alone. The simple cabin only had a bed on the other side of the room, a kettle, and an electric stove. Outside, a single bar stood still on my EFS. As I got my bearings and stood up, I remembered my injury as pain shot up through my leg. I gritted my teeth and ignored how much it hurt. Incredibly hungry and weak, I stepped outside, careful to avoid putting pressure on that leg.

In front of the burnt out campfire sat the young mare that had saved my life yesterday. With the daylight, I could clearly tell she was even younger than I’d expected. Then I noticed her flank was blank. She wasn’t just a young mare, she was a filly!

She turned to look at me, then went back to staring blankly ahead. I hesitated for a moment to wish her a good morning, or to thank her for moving me inside. She didn’t seem in a chatty mood, though. Best if I left her alone.

First and foremost, I needed to find more food. According to my PipBuck, there was a small town several hours away, maybe I’d have more luck there. In three days, I’d not even crossed a third of the distance to the marker on my PipBuck, and each day I managed to cover a shorter distance before growing too exhausted to move forward. Today, though, I would push through, and manage to get to the pre-war town of Marely. I’d previously briefly wondered when my PipBuck had picked up on the location tag.

As I hobbled past the extinguished campfire, the grey filly spoke to me, “Hey, uh, that song yesterday… Was it from your stable or something? I’ve never heard it on the radio.” The frequent pauses in her speech made her sound awkward and uncertain. Was this really the same pony who’d berated me last night?

“N-no,” I replied, stumbling on my own words, “just… just something I came up with on the spot.” I hope she doesn’t think I’m lying. How would I convince her? I wouldn’t lie about this though…

“Really? That’s super impressive!” Now she sounded excited. She paused for a second, then the hesitant tone returned to her voice. “I’m… I’m sorry for last night. I’ve… had a rough few days,” she admitted.

Not knowing what to say, I just nodded. Did she want something from me? Hesitant, I started trotting away once again.

"Say, what's your name?" asked the grey filly. I turned to her, confused. What did she want? Yesterday she'd told me to buzz off, and now she was making smalltalk? Before I got to formulate a response, she added, "I'm Cascade, by the way."

"Iron Sonata," I replied as stoically as I could manage, still confused.

We stared at each other in silence for a few more minutes, then I turned around once again.

After only a few seconds, she commented, “Is your cutie mark related to singing?”

I wished she would just tell me what she needed. Would it be rude to just leave? Yes, but I had to get going. I wanted to ask her directly, but I couldn't figure out how to do so in a polite manner. "What do you need from me?" was much too direct for my liking. Maybe I could ask around the topic? Try to lead her into it? First I needed to answer her own question, anyway.

"No, I don’t have a cutie mark," I replied after an uncomfortably long silence. I’d already tried singing back in the stable, so there was no way my little song had gotten me my mark.

“Oh, I don’t have one either,” she said, then sheepishly added, “as… you’ve probably noticed.”

I held back a sigh. Instead, I softly told her, “Look, I would love to stay and chat, but I really need to find some food soon, and ideally some healing potion.” Maybe this would finally get her to tell me what she needed from me. If not, I would just go away without asking for her approval; I really had no obligations to her, after all.

“Well, I wanted to ask you… Would you like to tag along with me?” Now that was a weird request.

I stared at her, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you wanted me to stay out of your mane.” Why did she suddenly want to travel with me? “Didn’t you call me a helpless foal just yesterday?” I added in a sardonic tone. Was I being too rude? I regretted that last comment. Although, she was a jerk to me yesterday, so it’s not like I’m the only rude one. Wait, what am I doing? She might think I don’t want to. “Uh, I mean, of course I would want to, I just don’t understand why you changed your mind.”

“Well… you see… I’m very lonely. And I’d feel bad leaving behind somepony inexperienced and vulnerable,” she admitted.

“Uh, okay.” My pride was a little hurt at her comment, but I had to admit I wasn’t the best equipped, mentally and physically, to handle the wasteland without Candy by my side. “Like I said, I’m fine with it, but I really need to find food today. So, if we could start moving soon…”

Before I knew it, she was digging through her saddlebags and offering me a pack of instamash. “You can have this.”

“Don’t I need to boil water for that?” I puzzled, accepting the plastic-wrapped food in my hooves.

“Nah, you can just levitate chunks into your mouth. Ain’t nearly as good, but it does feed you, and I don’t want to waste time getting more firewood right now,” Cascade clarified.

Shaking my head, I explained, “I’m burnt out though. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been caught by those wolves yesterday.”

“You know a fire spell as well? Mine isn’t enough to use against them, but it works for lighting a campfire.”

“No, why?” I wondered.

“Well, it’s the only thing that works against them. I don’t think whatever you’re thinking of could have damaged them; the only thing they fear is open flames.”

“Oh. Well I wasn’t planning on attacking them. I don’t think I know any offensive magic. I just wanted to teleport away from the pack.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You know how to teleport? That’s pretty advanced magic, surprised someone your age would know it.”

I shrugged. “Apparently. I don’t remember learning it, but my horn does.” Still had trouble understanding how that worked.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she deadpanned. I couldn’t blame her; even I had a hard time believing it. Maybe I was misremembering things?

“Anyway, in that case, you can just do it the earth pony way and shake it directly into your mouth.” After a brief pause, she shook her head. “Nevermind, you look too skinny, and I shouldn’t be giving you the worst stuff I have.” Digging through her saddlebags, she produced a can of Corn ‘N’ Beans, and pulled the tab off the tin.

After she levitated it to me, I swiftly devoured it. Even though my stomach was full, I wanted more, but now wasn’t the time.

“You heading anywhere in particular?” Cascade inquired.

I nodded in reply. “I got separated from my sister. Well, she’s not really my sister, but she’s all I have. My only hint is that I’m supposed to go to Manehattan.”

“I was planning on getting there eventually, so that works for me.” I still didn’t fully understand why she suddenly wanted to travel with me, but asking again would be rude.

Later that day, I was waiting in a ruined house at the outskirts of a settlement. To my surprise, it appeared as if ponies actually lived here. Maybe they—or their ancestors—were the ones who emptied all the houses in the region? I levitated another slice of canned apple into my mouth, and my PipBuck complained about the radiation by passive-aggressively clicking at me. I quickly marvelled at how crunchy the fruit was, even after eighteen decades.

Cascade had left to get more supplies two and a half hours ago, and the afternoon was slowly making way for the evening. I was starting to worry something had happened to her. I knew I should have gone with her instead of jumping on the first proper opportunity to rest. A part of me screamed that I shouldn’t be worried about a filly I had barely just met, but I ignored it. I liked her, and I certainly wouldn’t wish for anything bad to happen to her. Plus she’d been so kind to me, why would I not be worried about her?

My mind wandered to earlier that day when we’d first entered town early in the afternoon. Before we walked up to a merchant, Cascade had told me, “I’m going to beg each of the merchants to give us some food. I’d tell you to look pitiful, but you do that well enough without trying, so just follow me.” I’d been hurt by that comment, but in hindsight I had to admit she was right. I had a curious but sad look in my eyes. Coupled with my numerous scars, as well as my general “innocent filly” aura, it was no surprise that adults would pity me. In the end, we’d managed to scrounge up a bit of food—including the apples I was eating right now—but nopony had given us any of the medical supplies we needed.

After I finished my can, I nervously kept watch over my PipBuck’s clock. I desperately wanted to do something while waiting for her return, but the only activity I could think of was scavenging, and I couldn’t go anywhere in case she came back. I’d already combed this place, finding a few spare bullets and some BronCo Mac & Cheese. So, all I could do was watch the minutes slowly tick away. Stars, was I bored.

Eventually, after another fifty minutes of excruciating boredom, I heard steps outside the small building I was hiding in. I cautiously peeked through the window, finding Cascade trotting towards the door.

Stepping in, she smiled at me. “Guess who got healing supplies, as well as food to last us half a week?”

“Woah! That’s great!” I exclaimed. “How did you find so much in so little time? In four days I didn’t even stumble upon a single medical item!”

“You just gotta know where to look,” she said in a silly voice, then giggled. “Just kidding. I finessed it from one of the merchants in town. I think they were suspicious of me though, so we should leave as soon as possible.”

“Fee messed?” I raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean? Is that like a bartering term for getting a good deal on something?”

She stuck her tongue out. “I stole this. Wasn’t caught red-horned, but when they realise some of their stock is missing, they’ll probably blame it on the only stranger in town.”

“Wait, you stole from somepony? After they were so nice to us? How could you?” I asked, shocked and disappointed, as well as sad for the poor pony who’d lost his or her merchandise.

Cascade’s smile immediately died on her lips, and she stammered, “I… How are… You really… I don’t get you.” Anger churned within me. How was I in the wrong here?

“What? Because I don’t like the idea of stealing from some poor wastelander just trying to get by? What exactly is hard to understand about that?” I retorted, somehow managing to keep my voice level.

“Look at yourself first!” Clearly, my semi-calm accusations had gotten to her. “You’re so concerned about the quote-unquote poor wastelander, but have you seen yourself? Sonata, you’re so thin a strong breeze will knock you over, can barely walk three hours without collapsing, and have a festering wound on your back leg! You’re not a damn hero, you’re a wasteland orphan; the very bottom of the food chain.”

Anger turned to fury. She’d just stolen from an innocent pony, and now I was the villain? Venomous words started forming on my tongue, before I realised that it wasn’t what she was saying or even implying at all. I calmed down slightly. “Are you saying it’s alright to steal from somepony just because I’m worse off than them?” By that logic, it would have been perfectly acceptable to steal from the overmare, and yet everypony understood that stealing was messed up! Except we had security systems to prevent that from happening.

“No, but I am saying that you should value your life more! You will not last long if you simply agree to taking the hand fate’s dealt you and rolling with it! You’re weak and pathetic, and I don’t plan on letting your foolish and naïve stable dweller morals kill you.” When she finished her sentence, I was tearing up, my temper having cooled down. To my surprise, she hugged me. Her embrace wasn’t as warm or tight as Candy’s; instead it was awkward, and felt as if she was holding me simply to make me feel better. Thankfully it did, and I managed to avoid bursting into sobs.

Before I could reply anything, she added, “It’s why I said I don’t understand you. Your scars tell me you’re a survivor; that you always get back up from being knocked down—no matter how much it hurts. You seem like you should at least understand some of the basics of life in the wasteland, despite your stupid stable jumpsuit.” Come to think of it, I had no memories of the wounds that had caused my scars. Seeing my missing ear in particular had shocked me, but I hadn’t dared ask Candy about its cause.

The grey filly continued, “But the way I’ve seen you act paints a completely different picture. You take a shortcut through a dangerous forest. Then, when saved by a stranger, you seem more concerned with not bothering her than your continued survival, despite your rather serious wounds. And now you place morality over your own life. You just don’t make sense, Sonata.” I could tell she was on the verge of tears as well, ready to wash out her ire.

I had no idea what to reply, so I simply went quiet. My mind’s chaotic maze of thoughts was impossible to make sense of. Finally, after both of us stayed quiet for at least a whole minute, she asked me, in a lighter tone that still carried the situation’s seriousness, “So, Sonata, what’s your deal? You some kind of naïve stable filly stuck in a scarred and experienced wastelander’s body?”

“I… don’t know.” She deadpanned me. “No, really. I have a bad case of amnesia, and I don’t even remember how I got those scars.” An interesting idea suddenly crossed my mind. “Come to think of it, my memory issues might be related to how I got them.” As she raised an eyebrow in curiosity, I explained my theory, “I probably keep getting into trouble and hurt, then forgetting about it, and making the same mistakes over and over again. Until now, my sister was taking care of me, but without her, I’m probably very much in danger out here.” This idea wasn’t perfect, but it was something.

"Oh, sweet Celestia, what have I gotten myself into?" she muttered to herself. Then, to me, she said, "How confident are you sure we can find your sister in Manehattan?"

"Not very. It's just that I marked the location, so it must mean something. Even if she's not there, there will most likely be some kind of clue." At least I hoped so. What would I do if not? I didn't want to think about it.

"I see… In any case, let's bandage your leg, eat, then get moving. I'm afraid they might figure me out and come get us if we stick around."

She undid the knot around my leg, tossing the scrap of jumpsuit and revealing a gruesome wound. I felt myself grow nauseous and looked away before I lost my feeble lunch. The pain got worse when she removed the makeshift bandage. The magical compress touched my thigh, and a cool sensation spread throughout my limb, washing away some of the hurt. Healing magic was the best.

“By the way, why have you never asked your sister to keep closer tabs on you? It seems like she could have prevented a great deal of it, if she’s as strong as you’ve told me.”

This was the major flaw of my theory. “I don’t know. I thought about it, and with what I currently know, it doesn’t make sense. Even without asking her, she would have been able to protect me from most things. Though there’s also the issue that she doesn’t know about my amnesia. Well, maybe she does, I don’t know. I think I might need to tell her, but I really don’t want to worry her.” Cascade glared at me. “Right. I’ll tell her next time I see her. If I remember, that is. To be honest, I don’t even know if I told her already.”

“I’ll try to remind you about it when we get there. And maybe you should start a journal—you know how to write, right?” I nodded. “Cool, I’ll tell her to find you a notebook or something.”

I shook my PipBuck. “No need, I can keep a journal on here!”

When we finally left the old building, we headed down the road we'd come from—it was apparently the only way around the settlement, and we were best off not going through it. I limped behind Cascade, and she eventually turned around to look at me. "I wish we could stay here and let your leg heal a bit longer, but we really can't risk getting found. I don't think they would dare hurt somepony as young as me—well, at least not in a serious way, at least—but I don't want to take any risks." She resumed watching her step.

"What… would they do to us if we were older?" I asked, worried about the answer.

"Most ponies wouldn't hesitate to gang up on a thief and beat them senseless. Some might even kill you. Meanwhile, grown-ups always have a soft spot for foals, as you’ve noticed in our first trip to town.” She briefly paused to step over a large rock. “Even the grumpy ones will say that killing a kid is killing hope itself; it's killing the future. If word gets out that you've killed a child, your life span tends to significantly shrink." She looked at me once again. "I've met foals who will take advantage of that, mess with adults knowing they won't shoot. I… I'm too cautious. There's always going to be somepony crazy enough to murder young ones; mostly raiders, but even relatively sane ponies have breaking points." She walked over next to me and slowed her pace to adapt to mine.

I gulped. "When you talk about it like that, I get reminded of my own mortality, and it scares me," I replied. "I know it sounds strange, coming from somepony as… physically damaged as me, but I mean it. Perhaps because of my amnesia, I've never thought about somepony intentionally trying to end my life, let alone experienced it. With the timberwolves it was just their instinct, so I didn't even consider it an attempt on my life, just like I wouldn't consider that time a bookshelf almost fell on me one either."

She nodded calmly. "Uh-huh. Just a question. How long have you been out of the stable?" I couldn’t help but interpret this as an attack on my person, but swallowed my pride.

"According to my PipBuck, less than four months, but it feels like just over a week. The times I remember are all very foggy, and only a few hours at a time. Meanwhile, the past four days are the clearest memories I've had in what seems like years," I answered, oddly melancholic.

Over the next few days, my leg mostly healed up, though the skin remained sensitive in that spot. Cascade and I slowly got to know each other better as we made our way to Manehattan. She was an orphan who'd recently had to bury her mother. Eventually, she admitted that the biggest reason she wanted to travel with me was not that she needed the company, but because she thought I would get myself killed, and that she'd feel guilty about that. While it did sting a little, I perfectly understood why she'd think that—I was a danger to myself, after all.

As we were drawing closer to Manehattan, our supplies were starting to run out. The surroundings of the Town of Marely had been scavenged clean, and its inhabitants were now relying solely on trading with travellers—at least that was my speculation for what had happened to the region. How else would it have become so devoid of salvageable food? What they used in those trades remained a mystery to me, given that I hadn't talked to the ponies there. However, given the meagerness of their supplies, I doubted it was anything too valuable.

As I explained my little theory to Cascade, she simply shook her head. "No, this is normal in terms of food. You won't find much unless you're somewhere really dangerous, or you comb every building you come across." She continued trotting forward, then added, “They probably trade meat and crops, if you ask me.” I wondered how crops could grow without sunlight, but I pushed that thought aside. Wait, meat? I fail to see how that’s a lucrative business, ponies don’t eat meat. I focused my mind in one direction at a time.

Detrot hadn't struck me as particularly dangerous. Dangerously cold, maybe, but not if you knew to take the proper precautions. "What about regions where there just aren't many ponies?"

"I mean, if there aren't many ponies somewhere, it's probably for a good reason. You mentioned you've been to Detrot, right? There's… scary rumours about that region."

“Really? From what I remember, there’s just ghouls and cold weather,” I told her, curious to hear what she had to say about it.

“You’ve never heard of it? Something that comes up a lot is the idea of windigos, though I think it’s very imaginative ponies being at the wrong place at the wrong time. With how cold it is, it makes sense that ponies would end up believing in old mare’s tales.” She shrugged. “There’s also stories of a giant mare made of solid black, roaming the plains at night, and that sounds too original to be made up. Though, again, legends are legends, and I wouldn’t ever take them at face value, but there’s probably something to those.”

A shiver ran down my spine, my mind flashing images of a huge figure destroying everything in its path, ruined buildings, skeletons, and live ponies alike. A particularly gruesome thought crossed my mind; a foal squashed underneath a table-sized hoof, bones crushed flat and blood splattered evenly in the print. I got queasy, but somewhere, deep in my consciousness, part of me laughed. I bolted to the side of the road and lost my lunch. Potatoes did not taste as good on their way out, and my PipBuck reminded me that they had been slightly irradiated. Thanks.

“You okay? What’s wrong?” called out Cascade, levitating me a canteen of water.

“I had a very gross and vivid thought cross my head. I feel bad for wasting food like that, and I feel stupid,” I admitted shamefully.

“It’s okay, I think they were bad anyway. We should probably stop to scavenge soon regardless, so it’s not a huge loss.” She took a moment to gaze up. “This is starting to look more promising.” Indeed, as we were approaching the large city, more and more buildings had started popping up. “If I remember correctly, there’s a good neighbourhood with many multi-storey buildings, where not everything has been completely picked clean.”

“Didn’t you say we won’t find much anyway?” I asked. What was the point of scavenging if we wouldn’t find anything?

“Well, yeah, per apartment, but in a large enough settlement you’ll always find gems in the rough. Especially since bigger settlements tend to attract raiders and bandits, which in turn discourage scavengers.”

“Doesn’t that mean we should avoid those as well?”

“No, that just means we should be sneaky about it. As much as I’d love to be able to afford avoiding danger at all costs, that’s just not on the table for a filly like me.” I nodded in reply, and we continued trotting forward.

Digging up my previous thought, I said, “So, you mentioned meat, but… I thought ponies didn’t eat meat?”

Shrugging, she replied, “I mean, most don’t, but some do. I dunno how they do it; when I got my hooves on some, I got so sick I thought I was gonna die.”

Our conversation continued along those lighter themes; speculating about Marely’s trade, talking about food preferences, and other such things.

In the evening, we finally arrived at Buckville, the northernmost district of Manehattan. Cascade told me to stay close to buildings and out of sight, and I decided to keep her updated on hostiles—and neutrals—in the area with my EFS. We’d looked through a few buildings and found quite a few objects of interest; mostly food and the occasional baubles that might sell well, like intact cups, a well-preserved music sheet, and several boxes and cartons of cigarettes. Apparently ponies paid pretty bits for the latters. We also found some bottles of alcohol, which—according to Cascade—also sold fairly well, though we didn’t have a proper way to transport more than a few of them.

We were sneaking close to a building when we heard gunshots. Immediately, my companion dove for a narrow alleyway, and I followed suit. Red bars started appearing on both sides. Cascade tried to open a door leading inside one of the buildings, then shook her head, whispering, “Fuck. Blocked from the inside.” Hearing somepony my age swear kept shocking me, even though I’d heard her do it before.

An idea crossed my mind; how long had it been since my burnout? Focusing on a pebble, I felt my magic sense come back, momentarily overwhelming me. It reminded me of that time when I got sick as a young filly, and my ears would constantly pop. Often when it happened, the sudden increase in volume would startle me.

This confirmed any suspicions that my magic had returned; probably had been for a day or two. As a test, I levitated the rock in front of me, then picked out the first object that I found in my saddlebags—a bottle of Wild Pegasus whiskey. Cascade raised an eyebrow. “You sure this is the right moment to drink? Unless you plan on getting drunk and fighting everyone off like some kind of alcoholic hero,” she snarked.

“N-no,” I stammered in response. “I was just checking if my magic was back,” I defensively whined.

“Not that I’m unhappy to finally see your magic—interesting to see such an aggressive colour for somepony as gentle as you, by the way—but how’s that going to help us?” she wondered.

I looked up and found many balconies sticking out onto the narrow street. Somepony hadn’t planned very well when constructing this apartment complex; those should have been looking over a main street. “Let me try something.” Enveloping Cascade with my aura, I focused my magic and let my horn guide me through the motions of a teleportation spell. Something was off, however. The spell wasn’t aiming at the right place at all; if this kept on, I would end up underground. I attempted to correct the spell, but I didn’t understand what it was doing well enough, and it fizzled.

I didn’t have time to experiment! We needed to get to safety. I attempted the spell again, following my instinct. Right as it was finished, I shoved the entire… blob of magic onto the balcony, my horn illuminating the entire street a bright crimson. Immediately after we reappeared on a terrace, several metres above where we’d just been, I was hit with the backlash of moving such an enormous amount of energy. There had to be a better way to do this. I rubbed my temples in an attempt to soothe the pulsating agony throbbing in my head.

“Wow, you actually did it! Are you a magical prodigy or something? Or is this normal for stable dwellers?” Cascade asked excitedly, then placed a hoof over her muzzle and whispered, “Oops, didn’t mean to be so loud.”

“I don’t think I’m that special. I have pretty strong magic, but it’s nothing too out of the ordinary, at least according to Auntie Iodine.”

While I was explaining my magical aptitude, an idea flashed into my head. This spell was very similar to my tool conjuring spell, just more advanced. Maybe I could use this to lift the limitations on that? Maybe I would be able to figure out how to teleport complex items…

“Hmm… anyway, we should get inside,” she told me, snapping me out of my theorising, while climbing through the balcony window.

The living room we found ourselves in was barely bigger than my old quarters in the stable, barely illuminated by the evening daylight. To my left were two half-open doors, as well as a kitchen. The broken remains of a rotten table lay in front of what had once been a couch. The rest of the furniture in the room fared much better, but I still wouldn't have trusted any of it with my body weight.

Cascade immediately began rummaging through the different drawers, completely disregarding the situation we'd been in not even a whole two minutes ago. After all, we weren't really in danger anymore, unless the ponies participating in the shootout decided to investigate some arbitrary building all of a sudden. Thus, I joined her efforts, searching through a different commode.

Inside I found some odd instruments. One of them was a stick with a frazzled ball of cloth attached via a short string. Curious, I placed it into my saddlebags and watched as my PipBuck labelled it as 'cat toy'. I put it back in the drawer. All of these seemed to be made with a similar goal in mind: to attract attention to an object and away from the handle. I suspected only earth ponies would use those, as a unicorn could simply levitate the object at the end, instead of needing a handle. Why were there so many of them? Did cats really need so many toys? We hadn’t had any in the stable.

As I looked through the rest of the drawers, I found more pointless objects. Moldy paper, moldy novels, tattered clothing. One of the jackets seemed in particularly good condition, and after Cascade told me it might hold some value, I added it to my saddlebags. Overall, the living room did not hold anything useful. Even the bottles of liquor had already been opened, and thus had lost their taste over the decades, and were now worthless, clear liquid.

The first room in the short corridor was a bedroom. On the ruined mattress lay a pair of pony skeletons wrapped in an embrace. Those poor ponies had at least been able to spend the last few hours of their lives together, and I felt tears welling in my eyes at the thought. It was only when I looked closer that I noticed that in-between them lay one more skeleton, belonging to a comparatively tiny creature. As my mind caught up with the ramifications, a few tears flowed down my face, and I cried for the little family who had died here, hundred and eighty years ago.

Cascade spoke up from behind me, snapping me out of my sad reverie, "Could you move? You're blocking the doorway." I complied and started looking through their things. With the sight of the skeletons, I suddenly felt bad for rummaging through their belongings and taking whatever I wanted. The rational part of me protested—it wasn't like those ponies needed it anymore. Of course, that part of me was correct, but it still didn’t sit right with me.

Eventually, we picked out everything we could from the bedroom and moved onto the kitchen, where we found several cans of beans in a closet—it still amazed me that food could stay edible this long. Nothing else had survived all these years. Given that the entrance door was still locked, I doubted anypony else had scavenged this particular flat.

We opened the door from the inside, finding our way to other apartments. Unfortunately, we found that most of them were locked, and Cascade's lockpicking skills weren't up to the task. We ended up looking through many of the unlocked homes, which had clearly already been looted, and only the occasional can or bag of food remained.

Eventually, my eyes started closing on their own, and we decided it was best to stop for the night. We locked ourselves up in an apartment with a decent lock.

When I woke up, I noticed that Cascade had already left. I could hear arguing in the distance, echoing in the stairwell. As I checked my PipBuck, I noticed that I'd slept eleven whole hours! Why didn’t she wake me up?

I then noticed there were two white bars on my EFS. Likely the ponies arguing. Slowly coming to my senses, I started understanding what they were saying.

"I don't care! This is my territory, and you need to get the fuck out," a stallion's voice boomed. By his tone, he seemed deranged.

"How would I know that‽" yelled Cascade. "And even then, who decided it was yours? No one owns these ruins!"

I started creeping towards the direction of the voices, careful to not make a sound. In the next flat over, a dirty earth pony stallion loomed over the grey filly. He wore saddlebags, as well as some sort of bag around his neck. Distracted by the sight, I accidentally kicked a bit of rubble, drawing his attention, making his ears perk and twitch.

As he turned around, I noticed the bag around his neck was more like a basket, holding a pistol at his muzzle’s reach. “Another one? Fuck outta here!” While he was distracted, the gun glowed green and floated away from him.

“Leave us be, now. We’ll be out of your mane soon enough,” stated Cascade, shakily pointing the firearm at the scavenger. He seemed surprised and started moving out of her way, letting her walk towards me. Cascade slowly made her way over to me, still keeping the large stranger at bay with her newly acquired gun. She looked over at me, checking if I was alright.

The moment she took his eyes off of him, the stallion charged her, slamming her into the wall. He picked up his gun and started screaming, “That’s what you get for being on my turf!” He turned to me, pointing it at me. “You’ll need to give me everything you stole from me. I know you stole stuff, I can see it in your eyes!”

Behind him, I could see Cascade clinging to consciousness, just like me. I meekly replied to him, “O-okay. Just p-please don’t hurt m-me.” I hated how weak I sounded; how weak I was; unable to defend myself or my friend from a crazy scavenger. My heart was pounding in my chest and my vision was fading to black.

What‽ I couldn’t black out here! If I did, he would kill Cascade and I. This added stress only made my heart beat faster, and my senses grow number. “Come on! Move it, you little twat!” he yelled, towering over me. The world turned to black, and my final thoughts went to regretting having caused Cascade’s death.

The fact that he was speaking meant his tongue wasn’t on the trigger. Snapping fully back to reality, I used this opportunity to rip the Ironshod Firearms N99 straight out of his muzzle with a sharp telekinetic pull. Several broken brownish teeth followed the gun, scattering on the floor, trails of saliva following them.

I turned the pistol around and shoved it in his maw, aiming to the top left to avoid splattering Cascade with gore—or worse, accidentally shooting her through him. I almost pulled the trigger, but in that last fraction of a second, activated SATS instead. I queued a bullet to the back of his throat, and watched in utter delight as the back of his head exploded in a spray of brains, enjoying every moment of the scene in front of me.

In the slowed time, one thought crossed my mind, Did I seriously use SATS just to get a slow motion view of a head exploding? There is no way that’s normal. I just hope this won’t come back to bite me in the rear.

As the spell ended, I almost worried that somepony as stupid as him might survive having his brain blown out, given that he clearly had not been using it until now. Then, I noticed my friend staring in horror as I’d ended his miserable life right in front of her. At first she stared at him for a few moments, aghast. Then, her gaze finally turned to me. “W-wha-what?” she stammered, before the pain overtook her and she finally lost consciousness.

I sighed, removed her saddlebags—I couldn’t levitate them and her at the same time—and lifted her off the ground. Even though she was quite a bit heavier than me, I could carry her with a few layers of overglow. I was near my limit, but I knew not to overexert myself anymore. Ten days ago will be the last time I burn out. In theory, I could have even lifted only her front hooves and dragged her over to the mattress we’d slept on, but I didn’t want to risk hurting her more than she was already. As I placed her on the mattress, I checked for broken bones, but didn’t find any obvious ones. Though with the force of that impact, I doubt she’s completely unscathed. I made sure to lay her on her side, with her head lifted away from the rest of her body, just like Candy had taught me.

After picking up her saddlebags along with the lunatic stranger’s, disposing of his body, and finally locking us in the apartment we’d slept in, I spent several hours pacing the living room and thinking. Why had I lost my memory, only to get it back when it was convenient? Why had I acted the way I had? Some of the things I’d said and done were very much out of character… weren’t they? Could it really all be explained by amnesia? Maybe. In a way, without my memories, I was a different pony, so that probably explained why I had felt guilty over things that normally I wouldn’t have noticed.

On top of that, it surprised me how little sadness or anger I felt, unlike… that night. I was just… numb and melancholic, as if the time without my memories had mellowed me out. It seemed wrong to be this calm after somepony had just murdered my best friend. Then again, an entire week had passed…

I spent some time thinking about it, but once my mind started running in circles, frustrating me beyond belief, I decided I badly needed a distraction. Instead, I wanted to focus on something else entirely; magic. But what can I do? I shouldn’t be straining my horn, so practice is out of the question. Who knows when I’ll need to teleport again? Mentally shuffling through my catalogue of spells, my thoughts stopped on the tool conjuring spell. Specifically, how similar it was to teleportation. I shouldn’t practice it, but I could always theorise about it. Running through the motions of both spells in my head, I compared them as well as I could. I see…

Eventually, Cascade came to. “Hey,” I said.

She groaned in response, then sat up slowly, rubbing her right temple. “Hey. My head hurts like crazy. How long was I out?”

“Couple of hours,” I told her. “There’s still a few hours of daylight we can use, if you’re alright. Wouldn’t be surprised if you’re not, though; you took a pretty brutal hit, and I know how that feels like.” My first encounter with a ghoul came to mind, and I shuddered. “I could let you rest here while I explore the rest of the complex.”

She nodded, then asked, “I think you would need to find a way to pick the locks, since I’m pretty sure everything else was picked clean by that junkie.” I had recovered a few chems from his saddlebags; they were the only valuable objects in them.

“I don’t think I can. I was planning on teleporting onto a balcony or two. I can only use the spell a few times a day before I risk burning out.” I looked at her and inquired, “So, do you wanna come with me, or would you rather stay here for a bit?”

She hesitated briefly, then answered, “I think I’ll be fine, just gimme five minutes to properly wake up.” An awkward silence covered the room like a thick blanket. Eventually, she spoke up again, “You’re odd, you know that? One day you show extreme remorse over stealing from somepony, the next you execute some stallion in cold blood. I don’t get it.” Calling it in cold blood was a bit misleading, given that I’d felt immense joy, though that definitely only proved her point further.

“I don’t know how or why, but I got my memories back, and I’m very different from the pony you met six days ago. Unlike her, I’ve earned my scars. It would be a lie to claim I’m suddenly a wasteland veteran, but the memories I lost weren’t just of the wasteland, but also of my time inside of the stable.” I’d completely forgotten how my father had beaten me black and blue after I’d smashed that vase. I sighed. “Point is, I’m nowhere near as naïve as her.”

“That’s a relief. If I’m honest, I only joined you because my conscience wouldn’t let me just leave you behind. I felt like, if I let you leave without me, you would die within a week.” She smiled at me. “I’ve grown fond of you, so I wouldn’t mind continuing to travel together. At least until we meet up with your friend Candy.”

“Well, that’s the issue. Candy won’t be here,” I stated, averting my gaze.

"What? I thought she was waiting for you in Manehattan?" By the tone of her voice I could tell she knew what I was implying. She just wanted to make sure she wasn't jumping to conclusions.

"No, she was killed in front of my eyes, in western Manehattan. I think the amnesia might have been my body’s way of surviving, since, after she died, I was just ready to let myself die in that mansion.” I didn’t know if that was something the pony body was able to do, but it was my best assumption.

“I see… I’m sorry for your loss.” She stayed silent for a moment, either letting her words sink in, or trying to think of what to say. After a while, she asked me, “But why did you place that marker there? As a grave?”

I shook my head. “It's there so that I can find my belongings and caravan."

Tilting her head, she queried, "You own a caravan? Why did you leave it there?"

"Didn't have much of a choice when I was teleported away."

"Would you mind giving me the full story? I'm a bit lost here, if I'm honest."

"Sure, but I'd rather we work on getting supplies while I tell you." She nodded, and I got us onto the balcony of the flat above us, which we knew was locked. While we looked through drawers and cupboards, I told her everything. From my feelings of paranoia, that turned out to be an alicorn’s invisibility spell, to Candy's gruesome demise.

“I’m… sorry to hear that,” repeated Cascade, shocked and saddened. A part of my brain wondered why she cared so much, but the rest shushed it, as I just wanted to appreciate her compassion. Then, she added, “Do you… want to stick together after we get your stuff back? If we get it back.”

I wanted to hesitate, but I didn’t have a reason to turn her down. “I think I wouldn’t mind your company,” I replied with a small, sad smile. “Though I still have a very slim hope that Candy somehow survived the fall. In the off-chance that she’s alive, would you want to travel with us?” I doubted the ex-security mare would still want to start our mercenary career, given her wounds. At best she would be missing a leg, but she probably suffered more injuries due to the impact.

She thought about it for a moment, before answering, “I think so, if you’ll have me.” I briefly wondered what her reasons for hesitation were, but didn’t press the issue.

We continued ransacking the small apartment for a while, until Cascade asked me, “You mentioned you were going to get a job around here, and I was curious… were you gonna work for Tenpony Tower as guards? It’s far from the only job in the region that could work for former caravan guards, but I feel like it’s the most likely to currently be hiring.”

“Nope, we were actually just passing through Manehattan. We were going to work in Fillydelphia,” I stated flatly. It had seemed like a promising avenue of work, but pursuing it without Candy was simply pointless. We worked well as a duo—much better than the sum of our pieces—and I even doubted they wanted to train somepony my age, despite my skill with rifles.

She raised an eyebrow. “You mean you’d work for the slavers?” The ponies in Fillydelphia owned slaves? Well, given that they’re trying to rebuild some order, it makes sense they would use unpaid labour.

“Yeah, I think so, why?” was my simple reply.

Her expression turned to a scowl, and she kept quiet at first. Then, after a few moments, she rasped bitterly, “Nevermind. Forget I asked.” I was still curious, but I didn’t feel like risking souring her mood further. She most likely had a rationally sound reason for her behaviour.

We stayed quiet for the rest of the day, and I started worrying I'd said something bad.

Eventually, afternoon turned to evening, evening to night, and we found a mattress to sleep on.

The next day, we were walking towards the west side of Manehattan. Cascade had overall avoided talking since our conversation yesterday, but she no longer seemed as angry with me, and wasn’t giving me the quiet treatment anymore. Thus, I took my chance and asked her, "You seemed upset by my reply yesterday, how come? I didn't dare to ask about it in the moment.”

For a while, she stared at me in shock, anger occasionally flashing. However, confusion was the overwhelming emotion on her face. "You really don't know?" she finally asked. I shook my head, and she continued, "I don't like the fact that you were considering working with slavers. I understand it's a harsh world, and that a lot of ponies would do a lot of things to ensure their survival, but slavery just doesn't sit right with me."

She sounded like Candy when she would speak about killing another pony. Did that mean that slavery was also wrong? "I don't like asking this, since you might get angry at me, but… is slavery wrong?" Sheepishly, I added, "I'm really bad at that stuff."

She blinked. "Of course it is! How would you feel if someone took away your freedom and forced you to work until exhaustion?"

"I guess I wouldn't like it…" I quietly admitted. She did have a point, but at the same time, it wasn't happening to me, so why did I need to care? Maybe I should just trust her on this… "I guess you're right. I just didn't think of it this way."

"I don't get it, when you'd lost your memory, you were so much more… compassionate. Now you say something like this. What happened to you to make you so cold? Did life in the wasteland really treat you this harshly?"

"Like I said, my life in the wasteland wasn't the only part of my memory I'd lost. I seemed to have completely forgotten certain aspects of my life in the stable as well. I won't bore you with the details, since ponies seem to pity me when they hear them." And I hated being pitied. It made me feel weak.

She looked like she wanted to ask about it, but decided against it. Instead, we fell into silence again.

Eventually, we reached the building marked on my PipBuck. Walking around it, I was unable to find either my saddlebags, harness with all my weapons, or even Candy's body. I did find a blood stain on the ground, about where I would have expected her corpse to be. Maybe I would find her PipBuck on top of the tower, but what would that bring me? My model was more advanced, anyway.

This slightly raised my hopes. There was the chance she'd survived, swallowed a healing potion, and walked away. It was incredibly unlikely, but the fact that this option existed gave me hope. Maybe I should check on top anyway. She’ll want her PipBuck back when I see her again. If she’s alive, that is. If she’s not—I made myself stop thinking about it.

Cascade's voice rang out behind me, "Should she be here?" I nodded, oddly calm.

"I want to ask the locals if they've seen her." On my EFS, a few white bars flickered in the distance. "Hopefully none of them are as crazy as that stallion yesterday." Cascade reluctantly agreed. “First, I’d like to get up that building.”

Unfortunately, the wagon was already gone. After we retrieved her PipBuck, we went from pony to pony, finding scavengers with very different reactions upon seeing us. None of them had seen Candy, though. But neither had they seen her body being eaten by ghouls or anything like that. There was still hope.

Eventually, after a couple of hours, we seemed to have found and talked to everypony around here. One of them did suggest we talk to the owner of the general store nearby, who apparently “saw everything”. We needed to sell off our loot, as well as buy food and hopefully ammunition or another gun, so we decided it was best to do it now.

As Cascade bartered to sell individual scavenged objects, my eyes got caught on the assortment of weaponry he had lying on the table behind him. Leaning on the counter, I took a closer look at them. Several muzzleguns were strewn out. Another N99 10mm pistol as well as two revolvers. Curiosity flooded my mind, and I desperately wanted to take one of them apart. I’d seen illustrations in The Mechanical Marvels of Firearms, but I craved the feeling of dismantling the gun in my telekinetic grip, and inspecting each and every piece individually.

Unfortunately, they were probably much out of our price range. So far, Cascade had haggled out less than hundred and fifty caps, and this most likely cost much more. However, as my disappointment slowly grew, I spotted a familiar sight. The Wild Weaponry Mark II Varmint rifle. The exact same model—with a slightly different finish—that I’d previously owned. Due to my experience with the rifle I knew that this model had been so common prior to the megaspells that even now it could be found for cheap.

Interjecting in Cascade and the vendor’s bartering, I asked, “How much for the rifle? Do I get to look at it closer before we buy it?” I tried my best to not sound condescending, despite his uneducated accent.

“Wait, don’t we already have a pistol? Should we really be wasting caps on another firearm?” challenged the grey unicorn.

“Well, if you insist, we can sell him that, since I vastly prefer rifles over any pistol.” Though I had to admit, those revolvers seemed extremely enticing right now. “But I’d prefer if we each had a gun.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Uh, you know I have no idea how to use a pistol, right?”

“It’s not that hard, you just point and pull the trigger,” I rebutted. She deadpanned. “Alright, if you don’t want it, that’s fine, but in that case I’d rather keep it as a secondary firearm just for last-ditch situations.”

“Guns are expensive, though. We really don’t have that much,” she argued.

“This is a particularly cheap type of rifle. He’d be crazy to sell it over seventy caps.” I was fully aware that even eighty caps would have been reasonable for this rifle, but I was also fully aware that despite our semi-hushed tones, he could hear us perfectly. Hopefully he wouldn’t see through my trick.

With a sigh she finally gave in. “Fine, if you think it’s necessary. You helped me earn those caps anyway, so you get to decide how we spend part of them.”

“Ninety caps,” the salespony stated flatly. Cascade had a mixture of annoyance and smugness on her face as my bluff failed.

“Can I have a look at it first?” The exterior didn’t look impeccable, so I had reason to suspect the interior wasn’t in perfect condition either. If I could point out some flaws, I could maybe knock the price down a little.

“Sure, but don’t be expectin’ me to give it up for free just because there’s a scratch or two on the finish.” Turning around, he grabbed the rifle in his muzzle and placed it in front of me.

Immediately, it glowed red, and within two dozen seconds it was fully disassembled. Some of the screws were a little rusty and ended up taking a bit more effort to remove. I put them on the side, as they weren’t nearly damaged enough to warrant a large reduction in price. Looking down the barrel, I noticed it was full of carbon residue; hadn’t been cleaned in a while, despite having seen use. Everywhere on the rifle I looked, I spotted signs of heavy usage with little to no maintenance. Of course, nothing that I couldn’t fix if I worked my magic—literal and metaphorical. For obvious reasons, I would keep this information from the earth pony trying to charge ninety caps for it.

As I listed every single flaw with the weapon, I watched his smirk slowly fade, until his smug expression had completely been wiped from his face. I finished my tirade with a flat “Forty caps.” Those were all nitpicks, but there were so many that I was able to spot that they ended up seeming like overwhelming flaws.

He reluctantly agreed, then went back to trading with Cascade while I moved out of sight and polished each piece individually, casting the more complex repair spell on each part, my horn slowly getting tired as I put the rifle back in shape. I doubted the vendor would change his mind on the transaction if he found out I had restored it with such ease, but I was afraid he might get his mood soured and give Cascade worse deals on each future item.

Eventually, their conversation drew to a halt as she ran out of objects to sell, and ended up buying a large stock of preserved food and almost-safe-to-drink water. The only things she hadn’t sold were a few bottles of liquor, of which she claimed they were worth much more than the few caps he was offering. I wasn’t done with fixing the gun, but it would have to wait until later today when we settled down for the night. Swiftly putting the weapon back together—the previously-rusty screws now slid in seamlessly—I came back to the front of his shop.

“Before we leave… did you by chance see a lavender-pink mare around these parts? Her pink mane looks like a candy cane with a white stripe in it. She looks a bit like the Ministry of Morale mare on those old posters, just with a different shade of pink.” I paused for a second, and before he had the chance to answer, I added, “This may sound weird, but in case you haven’t seen her alive, have you seen her corpse getting dragged by, I dunno, a ghoul?” I didn’t like how I phrased that. Emotions were definitely getting to me.

"Ah don't think so," he replied with no hesitation at first. Then, realisation spread on his face right as he uttered that last word. "Well… Ah did see Airdrop carryin’ somethin' pink the other day. Dunno if it was your mare or somethin' else entirely; mah eyesight ain’t what it used to be. In either case, you should go ask him, he pretty much knows about everything happenin’ in town."

"Where can we find him?" inquired Cascade.

"South o’ here, in front o’ Angel's Park. He renovated an old buildin’ with defences and everythin’. It's hard to miss, really."

We thanked him and went on our way. After we were out of earshot, Cascade sputtered, "I didn't know you were this good with guns! I didn't even know that some of these parts had names!"

I felt a cocky grin spread on my face. "Well yeah, my cutie mark is a rifle, I'd expect to know a thing or two about them," I boastfully replied.

"Wait, huh? Didn’t you say—Oh, did you forget about your cutie mark, too?"

"Apparently so. It's weird thinking back; how could I forget about the thing I like the most?" Thinking back, coming up with that little song reminded me a little bit of how handling a firearm felt. In a way, it had felt right, much more so than when I’d experimented with music back in the stable. I’d just never been the creative type; maybe my father’s treatment had crushed the flame of imagination in me?

"I wonder what my cutie mark will be," Cascade pondered, drawing me out of my thoughts. I wanted to give her a few suggestions, but I had no idea where to start, especially for a wasteland orphan. What was it with orphans in the wasteland anyway? Stupid question. She shook her head and continued, dismissing her previous statement, "I probably shouldn't worry about that. I'll get it eventually, and it's not worth doing anything that could endanger my life just to find out."

We fell quiet, both engrossed in our own thoughts, as I led us towards Airdrop's home. My PipBuck had analysed the instructions and automatically placed a marker where his building was. Or should it be 'automagically', since PipBuck's use spell matrices? I shook that silly thought out of my head as we trotted onwards.

Eventually, we reached the park. True to the vendor’s word, a building immediately stood out, surrounded by barbed wire on the front side. I suspected the back of the building was similarly protected, though the fence didn’t extend to the space between buildings. Wouldn’t have been much use anyway.

As we approached it, I was able to recognise some turrets—similar to Stockpile’s, just in larger quantities—appearing on my EFS as white bars. All of the lower windows were boarded up, even the few whose glass hadn’t shattered in all these years. Near the top of the tower, though, most were clear. Likely he uses those as vantage points. The only exceptions being the few windows blocked by metal plates, with only a circular hole in the middle. Cover, with a gap to shoot through, I guessed.

In front of the gate—covered with razor wire at the top—was a bell, underneath a sign that read. “Airdrop’s home and postal office. Deposit packages along with payment in the mailbox. Ring if I’m needed. No solicitors.” Underneath it, a smaller sign read, “The courier is in.” The mailbox in question was a tube leading through the fence and into a metal footlocker.

Hesitant, I wrapped the bell’s handle in my telekinesis and rang it twice. After a few moments, a male voice called out from the upper windows. “Gimme a bit, I’ll be there in a second.” About a minute later, he emerged from the seventh storey’s, circling down until he landed on the other side of the gate. “What can I do for you? I’m still taking a break from deliveries for a few days, but as usual caps might convince me to get back to work sooner.” His accent and manner of speech sounded familiar, but in the moment I couldn’t place where from.

“We’re not here for a delivery.” He raised an eyebrow, then seemed to have a small realisation but kept quiet. A part of me was convinced he was trying to hide that feeling, but that didn’t make any sense. “About eight days ago, I was separated from my friend. I think she’s dead, but can’t be sure. When I asked one of the locals, he told me he’d seen you carrying something that could have been her corpse, a few days ago.”

“Was your friend pink?” I had a horrible, gut wrenching feeling of wrongness overtake me. Like somepony had grabbed my innards in their telekinesis and squeezed. It took all my mental strength to not vomit right then.

“Yes?” I replied, voice much meeker than I’d intended.

“Then yes. I threw her corpse into a river.” He what?

“You did what? She deserved a proper burial!” My voice cracked as my tone rose, anger flaring.

“Yeah? Well you shoulda given her one.” I wanted to rebut, but what would it bring? I ought to shoot him instead. No, that was a bad idea, too. The turrets would rip me—and probably Cascade as well—to shreds the moment I opened fire. Possibly even before, if their algorithms were anything like my PipBuck’s. While I was stuck in thought, he continued, “A lot of ponies die around these parts. It’s a side gig for me to get rid of the corpses before they attract undesirable creatures.”

Besides, what would killing him even bring? It would vent my anger right now, but afterwards Candy would still be… gone. With that thought, my anger was swept away by sadness. She really was dead. I felt my eyes fill with tears as my mind struggled to accept this new reality. I’d give anything to have her back. To have her hug me and tell me everything would be alright.

But no, she wouldn’t be able to do that. Not now, or ever again. Everything wasn’t going to be alright. Breaking into sobs, I started running. I didn’t care where. If I stayed here, I might just get myself ripped apart.

Footnote:

New Perk: Intense Training — Having failed to kill you, your time in the Equestrian wasteland has made you stronger. You permanently gain one point in your END score.

Perk refreshed: Teleportation I — You’ve figured out how to teleport small objects to and away from yourself. Unlike a normal teleportation, you are not limited by your END score. Instead the normal magic limits apply.

Author's Notes:

Phewee was this chapter hard to write. The base idea was “Iron is hit with amnesia, meets Cascade, then they find out Candy is dead 4realzies”, but I was suuuuuuper hesitant on the execution. I had no idea where to go with it. In the end, I ended up splitting this chapter in two for impact. The next chapter should be way shorter, I might even possibly pull a sub-5k chapter. (future sapphie here; the chapter isn’t even complete or edited and it’s already 7.5k words)

As usual: huge thanks to my pre-reader/co-author, SnakeEye, and my editor, EverfreePony