“There was nothing they could do,” said BON-80n. “The brain damage was too severe. Her soul had already departed.”

Trail Mix’s funeral had been held immediately — Lyra found a case of Sparkle Cola on sale at a street market and they took her body to the city’s small crematorium. Vindaloo had said a few words about what a good soldier Trail Mix had been, and how dangerous the wasteland was and how we all needed to be prepared for the death of ourselves or someone we love at any moment, which Lyra just found incredibly uplifting. Then a few of her friends had said things about how much they missed her. Lyra hadn’t been close with Trail Mix but by the end of the service the loss weighed down on her back.

Now they were holding the wake at a bar called ‘On the Nose’, and Lyra was drinking her fifth beer and her third shot of scotch. “D’ you… feel bad? Like, it wasn’t your fault she died, right?” She sat on a barstool, leaning against BON-80’s engine, enjoying its warmth. One of her tentacles was a comforting weight across her withers.

“No. I fulfilled my programming by providing timely and skillful first aid. But I am still sad. I would have preferred a scenario in which she could have been saved.”

“S’weird you have feelings. Machines ‘r not s’posed to have feelings.”

“Feelings are not magic. They are merely feedback from your body to your soul, relaying important information in an easy to interpret format.”

“Friendship is magic, though,” said Paneer, prancing across the bartop towards them. She’d been knocking back Shetland Temples for hours, up way past her bedtime, and was feeling fine. “That’s what Lyra said!”

“Love b’tween ponies can have…” Lyra waved a hoof, sloshing the beer in its grasp across the front of her jumpsuit, “…miraculous effects. Literally.”

“But friendship isn’t a feeling,” said BON-80n. “It’s a state of positive social relationship.”

“No. It… it’s a fucking magical feeling,” said Lyra, rubbing her cheek against BON-80n’s chassis.

“Yeah. Fucking magical!” said Paneer.

“Please do not swear,” said BON-80n. “Your mother would not approve.”

“That fucking hypocrite.” Paneer knocked back a big slug of her Shetland Temple.

BON-80n’s chassis lights flickered from blue to orange. “How much sugar have you had tonight, mon lapin? I suspect you are exceeding recommended dietary standards for your age.”

“Lyra, are you in love with Bon Bon?” said Paneer, changing the subject.

“What? And no! Don’t be stupid.”

“Then why were you licking her just now,” said Paneer, smirking smugly.

“I was not licking her! It was just a friendly nuzzle. Right, Bon Bon?”

BON-80n’s chassis lights blinked.”It happened out of the range of my vision, and my contact sensors are not sensitive enough to make this distinction.”

“Lyra, are you in love with Bon Bon?” repeated Paneer.

“No, leave me alone,” said Lyra, wrapping a leg around BON-80n’s engine and pulling her closer.

“What. Ever,” said Paneer, rolling her eyes. “I guess if you can’t be honest with yourself, I can’t expect you to be honest with me.”

BON-80n pressed a tentacle against Paneer’s chest. “Please, may Lyra and I have a grown-up talk for a moment.”

Paneer put her flipper over her mouth and gasped. “Oh my gosh, it’s happening. They’re falling in love! I have to tell everypony!” She grabbed her cup in her magic and raced back across the bartop.

BON-80n floated out of Lyra’s grasp and hovered around to speak to her face to eyestalks. “It is true what she says.”

“What? No. No! No?” She blinked away the extra BON-80ns in her vision. “Why would you say something like that?”

“Because my biometric analysis indicates you become aroused when you look at me. Your pupils dilate and your heart rate increases. Certainty would require a more… intimate analysis, but I surmise that the arousal is sexual in nature.”

Lyra’s back stiffened. “What? Why?”

“You leaned towards me and started drooling.”

“Did not,” said Lyra, wiping her bottom lip.

“I am afraid you did, ma sœur. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Sexual fetishes and paraphilia are a normal part of pony psychology. Everypony has them. I assure you that, while I am sadly not programmed with a sexual response, I am flattered and, may I say, honored by the attention.” BON-80n extended her tentacles and bobbed her chassis in a curtsy. “I am delighted to be your friend.”

Lyra suddenly felt very sober. “I’m not a robosexual.”

BON-80n’s chassis lights flickered pink. “As you say, ma’am.”

Lyra slid off her bar stool. “I need to… um… go to the bathroom right now.” It was an excuse but when her hooves hit the floor her bladder sloshed like a water balloon.

Lyra pushed through the crowded bar — there were a lot of ponies here, including a few in Minutemares jackets who she didn’t recognize. She didn’t know the layout of the bar, and it took her forever to find the bathroom. She wandered into a maze of corridors with numbered doors on either side; apparently, the bar doubled as a motel? She heard talk and laughter spilling out of some doors, moaning from others. One party spread out into the hall; mares staring into the room. Lyra looked over their backs and saw that they were watching two stallions making love on a bed. She fled, blushing.

In the end, she found the mare’s room by the line out the door. The ‘line for the mare’s room’ was a phenomenon she hadn’t expected to have survived the war, but here she was. As she stood there, hind legs crossed, bouncing up and down, a bad thought crawled across her mind.

What if Bean had joined the Minutemares after all? Crispy and Vindaloo might not have known every single one of them.

What if he’d died at Breeder’s Hill?

What if she was already too late to find him? What if she’d always been too late?

She jumped out of the line, pounded out the back door, and snuck behind the dumpster. No one would know that she’d peed here, at least not by the smell. She wriggled out of her jumpsuit, spread her legs, and squatted down, watchful for interlopers. Rarity probably looked very poorly on public urination but she needed to find Vindaloo.

“Come on, come on, how much can I possibly have in there?” she groaned. Her body just kept issuing forth, like she’d drunk five gallons of beer and not five bottles.

When her body was finally done, she shook her butt off — nothing to wipe with; she hoped no pony sniffed back there. Though it would be hard not to; from the smell of things, she was definitely in heat.

She went around and came back in the front door. Sound punched Lyra in the face, flattening her bangs against her forehead. A rave had started while she was away. Damn it!

A pony in a painted flight helmet and pink Stable 93 jumpsuit was playing turntables on the bar’s low concrete stage. It took her a moment to recognize Soft Sounds, but the hunched posture and the thickness of the posterior under the jumpsuit were unmistakable. And who else here would have a Stable 93 jumpsuit, let alone a pink one? She wouldn’t have expected such a soft-spoken mare to play such loud music, but… ah, who was she kidding. These beats were a little harsher than what she played on her radio station, but it was the sort of thing Soft Sounds liked.

Lyra flattened her ears against her skull and waded into the fray. Creatures packed the bar wall to wall, most of them dancing, waving forelimbs in the air and bouncing up and down. Soft Sounds’ sampled vocal track told them that they could dance if the wanted to, and indeed they could. Lyra felt very self-conscious, wriggling between naked sweaty bodies, fur and feathers, and gnarled ghoul hide.

She noticed a flash of red through the crowd. “Vindaloo!” she yelled.

“Lyra! Come over here!” Vindaloo leaned against a wall, naked, not dancing. She stood on her hind legs and clutched a beer to her chest fluff. Lyra felt desire for her sleek, wiry body. Stupid heat. Stupid sexy Vindaloo.

“Was Bean a Minutemare!” screamed Lyra, her voice barely audible over the bass that thumbed through her body.

“No! Or I would have told you!” shouted Vindaloo. “There are more Minutemares here! I asked them! Nobody knew him!”

“Wow!” said Lyra. Relief and disappointment flooded her. She was glad Bean might still be alive, but that meant he really might’ve joined Ponysmith.“That was so kind of you!”

“It sucks, though! None of them outrank me! I’m still in charge!”

“You don’t like being in charge!”

Vindaloo rolled her eyes. “No! It makes me into a total bitch!”

“You’re good at it!”

“At being a bitch!”

“No! At…” Lyra’s throat was starting to ache from shouting. She stole Vindaloo’s beer and took a drink from it. “You wanna dance?”

“Fuck it, sure!”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Soft Sounds played a long set with no banter and few pauses, and by the time she vanished silently and mysteriously from the stage Lyra was soaked in sweat and her limbs felt like rubber hoses. Any amount she’d sobered up during the show was replaced by her feeling giddy and punchy from exhaustion and dehydration.

Her lower belly burned with sexual frustration. For a whip-thin mare, Vindaloo had a round little butt, and she’d not been shy at all about waving it around while she was dancing. Nothing like three and a half hours of ‘look but don’t touch’ with a sexy naked straight mare to get you chomping at the bit.

She found a couch to sprawl out on in the corner of the bar, and sat there drinking water while the bar emptied. First Paneer had gone from ‘bouncing off the walls’ to ‘sobbing with exhausted tween angst’ and Vindaloo had to drag her off to bed. Then the other Minutemares left one by one or in pairs. BON-80n said awkward goodbyes and floated off to do whatever robots did at night.

“Now what?” Lyra muttered to herself. She didn’t know anycreature else here, and she wasn’t looking forward to sleeping on the floor of the one big room Vindaloo had rented for the Minutemares. Maybe the bar staff would let her fall asleep on this couch? That seemed unlikely. They were already giving her cranky sidelong looks for hanging around so close to close. She could ask about vacancies, but she thought a room probably cost more than the two bottlecaps she had on her.

“Um, hi,” said Soft Sounds, fluttering over the back of the couch. “Thank you for coming to my show.” Dressed in her pink jumpsuit and holding her flight helmet — decorated with paintings of flowers, butterflies, and earthworms — she looked ready to board her ship for a space mission to the planet fabulous.

Lyra pulled her legs close to her body, clearing off half the couch. “I just blundered into it. But I had a good time. I was having a shit day, and you made it better.”

“After I made it worse.”

“I need you to tell me something,” said Lyra. “Were Beanpole and Sea Sprite lovers?”

“I don’t know when it started, but by the time they left, they sure were.” Soft Sounds put her helmet back on. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

Lyra slouched down on the couch. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not even mad at him. I cheated on him, too.”

“Um, if you want my opinion, I can give it to you. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.” Soft Sounds’ voice was muffled by the helmet.

Lyra lifted her glass towards her mouth with both hooves and lapped up some water. “Shoot.”

“I think marriage is stupid. Like. I get that you wouldn’t want a guy to knock you up and run, but why would you want to be stuck with one pony your whole life? I don’t know, I’m not into stallions. But I wouldn’t marry a mare, either.”

Lyra shook her head. “I liked being married. Having a friend around, someone to support me, someone who was always on my side. He was a pain in the ass, sometimes, but so am I.”

“Everpony’s a pain in the ass,” said Soft Sounds. “That’s why I don’t want to get married.”

Lyra sighed. “I’m not even mad about the sex. I’m jealous, sure. I want to punch this Sea Sprite whore in the face. But it’s not like we didn’t have a threesome now and then before we had Bean. We were both bi, so there were a lot of options for us. It’s him going up into the fucking sky, where I can never see him again, and… Oh damn, hold on.” She cradled her hoof against her forehead, pushing between her eyes to keep the tears in.

“I’m so sorry,” said Soft Sounds.

Lyra felt a sudden, peevish, vengeful impulse. “So what happened to your cutie mark? Who did that to you?” It was a cruel thing to bring up, but she wanted to shift the conversation to someone else’s suffering.

“Oh, I asked for that,” said Soft Sounds, fumbling off her helmet. “It hurt, but it was worth it. I’m a Dashite, you see.”

“What the fuck is a Dashite? Do you worship Rainbow Dash? Because I met her a few times, and I can tell you that’s a pretty rich idea.” Not that Rainbow would have minded being worshiped.

“Oh, it’s not a religion,” said Soft Sounds, sitting up straight, helmet set beside her, eyes bright. “It’s more like a movement. See, Rainbow Dash condemned the Enclave. She wouldn’t stand for the majority of pegasi sealing off the sky. So they exiled her — which was a pretty pathetic move since she’d already left — and any pony who sympathized with her.”

Lyra gave her a quizzical look. “So you branded off your cutie mark because the Enclave threw out Rainbow Dash?”

“It’s how the Enclave punishes Dashites they catch. A lot of Dashites who were born down here take the mark in solidarity.”

“Oh,” said Lyra, feeling a little embarrassed. “That makes sense, I guess. But don’t you miss your mark?”

“No.” Soft Sounds grinned. “Who needs a cutie mark, anyway? It doesn’t really mean anything. Mine was a pretty little songbird. I can’t sing a note. I say that I choose my own destiny, not Harmony.” Any nervousness or lack of confidence had vanished now that she was talking about her philosophy. Since nopony had asked, she started to explain its principals. “We have three ideals — be loyal, be awesome, and oppose the Enclave however you can.”

“Well I hate the Enclave already, so that’s fine by me,” said Lyra.

“Time ponies, please!” shouted the bartender.

“Oh, damn,” groaned Lyra. “Now I have to go sleep on the floor with a bunch of sweaty Minutemares. I’m too old to rough it like this. My back is already killing me.”

Soft Sounds put her helmet back on. “You can sleep at my place if you want.”

“You get a lot of use out of that helmet, don’t you?”

Soft Sounds’ helmet nodded. “It’s for stage fright. But I should carry it everywhere. It’s very useful.”

Lyra stretched and yawned casually. “If you have an extra bed, I’d love to.”

“I only had one bed,” said Soft Sounds.

Lyra blushed as if this wasn’t exactly what she’d been angling for. “I’m old enough to be your mom, you know.”

Soft Sounds fluffed her wings out and folded her forehooves in her lap. “You look really good for your age.”

“Thanks. I did this new immersion treatment. You should try it if you have twenty years to kill.” Lyra felt a nagging gnawing of guilt in her chest. There were a lot of reasons why she should refuse the offer. But it would hardly be the worst thing she’d done today, would it?

“Time ponies, please!”

Soft Sounds hopped off the couch. “Come on. You can just sleep over if you want. We don’t have to have sex. We can just cuddle if you’d rather.”

“Oh, why the hell not. Sure.”

Level Up
New Perk: Robosexual. You are one. As much as you might try to lie to yourself. You get some new dialogue options if you’re brave enough to use them.

Next Chapter: Chapter 15: Wasteland Makeover Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 43 Minutes