In the morning Lyra summoned all her courage and checked the date on her PipBuck.

Freezeuary 24th, EoH 47

Not eighteen years after the Bad Day. Twenty. Great. There was coffee, and there was moonshine available to put in the coffee.

It had snowed hard during the night. Fresh snow covered the ground up to Lyra’s chest, hiding the carnage of yesterday’s battle. The Minutemares and refugees wasted an hour building a sled to carry the power armor. Lyra, sweating bullets and worrying about magic burnout, levitated it up over the snow and onto the sled, which immediately snapped under the armor’s weight. The armor fell onto its side and sank into the snow all the way to the ground.

“There’s no way we’re moving this,” said Vindaloo.

“Nope,” said Crispy.

So Lyra took the spark battery out and they left it there.

They could carry the minigun, though. They built more sleds for it and the rest of their loot and headed uphill towards Stable 93. Yesterday Lyra had covered the distance in half an hour, half walking, half galloping, in frozen and beaten down snow. In fresh snow up to her shoulders, every step was an ordeal. Her scavenged boots were too big for her and only served to trap freezing slush between the inside of her boots and her hooves. The snow was already beginning to overcome her stable suit’s water resistance. After trudging for what seemed like hours, she looked around to see that they’d only made it as far as the edge of town. Her PipBuck confirmed that she had been traveling for fifteen minutes.

This was going to be a very long day.

She started in the vanguard with Crispy, who was carrying Paneer on his back because the snow was deeper than she was tall. Lyra showed him the roads to take to get back to Stable 93; a longer but easier route than the one straight through the forest that she’d taken yesterday. After that, they’d run out of things to talk about, and Lyra felt awkward about trying to shoot down his plan last night, so she’s let herself drift back through the ragged ranks of tired refugees.

The three thestrals were having an easier time than the ponies on the ground. They flapped from tree to tree, then waited, hanging from the bare branches until the column caught up with them. The two refugee thestrals covered their eyes with their wings while they waited, but Blue Note kept her eyes open, scanning the area around them for movement.

So of course she caught Lyra staring at her. Again. And again.

“Do you see anything you like?” asked Blue Note, as Lyra waked by her a little while later.

Lyra looked up. The slit-pupiled cerulean eyes watched her with mirth; the upside-down smile was fangy but friendly. She reminded herself that thestrals were insectivores, not carnivores. Those teeth weren’t for her.

But she wanted them to be.

She tried not to think about those sharp little teeth gently nibbling the back of her neck. How could she be so disloyal? Beanpole had done nothing wrong. Hadn’t he?

Then she realized she was staring at her again. “I’m… I’m so sorry. It’s just that before the war we didn’t see a lot of thestrals. Are there more of you now?” Oh Harmony no, why had she said that? That sounded so tribalist!

“Not more of us. Fewer of you. The megaspells fell during the day when we were asleep in our caves. So very many of us survived the war. And because the pegasi are all gone…”

Lyra’s heart fell through her ribcage and into the snow. “Wait, the pegasi are gone? Where did they go?”

“You don’t know? Look up. What do you see?”

“Um, It’s overcast?”

Blue Note nodded. “It is always overcast. The pegasi fled the wasteland, after the war. Sealed off the sky and locked themselves away like a flock of cowards. You will still see a pegasus from time to time—a family that stayed, an exile, a pegasus born below. But they are rare. There is much work for flying ponies, and thestrals fill the need. We do well as night guards, as well.” She stretched her jaws in a wide yawn. “Though when we must be awake during the day, it is hard.”

“Oh.” Lyra suddenly felt very weary. If Beanpole had gone up there, there was no going after him. But he couldn’t have taken Little Bean with him. So he must still be down here. Except that Little Bean would be an adult, now, wouldn’t he? Lyra wanted to cry. She decided to focus on how cold and miserable she was, instead.

“Blue Note has a question for you. Are you still looking for the husband that abandoned you?”

Oh please Blue Note no. Not only did the question make Lyra want to cry even more, but the subtext was obvious—Blue Note seemed to be into her, and Lyra reciprocated, at least physically. Oh, she hated herself so much sometimes.

So she changed the topic. “Tell me—why did everyone vote to go to the stable? Is Triple Diamond City a bad place?”

“We wish to have something of our own. A place that is ours, not beholden to any authority. We had that once, at Breeder’s Hill, and we want it again. Blue Note was born in Triple Diamond City. It is the last bastion of civilization in a broken world. Which is fine, if that is what you enjoy.” She gave a small upside-down shrug. “If Blue Note wanted to live like that, Blue Note never would have left.”

Lyra nodded. “I guess that makes sense. I want to see Triple Diamond City before I make any choices about where to stay, but I’m sure not heading off alone. I’m not excited about trying to reclaim the stable? But maybe I can find information about where my family went, in there.”

“I hope you find your son,” said Blue Note.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

A little before noon, and a little more than halfway there, the not-pregnant thestrals flew off, and came back clutching houseflies the size of small dogs. Lyra watched in horror as Vindaloo and her cooking assistants dug out a pit in the snow, started a fire, and began cleaning and dressing the fly things. Were they going to eat those?

They were.

Vindaloo did the best she could; Lyra’s two slim slices of yellowish fly flesh were at least attractively seared. She cut off a small chunk with the knife on her multi-tool and tried to chew it with her back teeth. Ugh. She’d never been a fan of meat, and this had the texture of an old tire. It squirted oily fat across her tongue. She wanted to vomit.

Still, it was all she was going to get to eat, so she wolfed it down as quickly as she could. Later she wished she hadn’t. Her lunch wanted to violently eject itself from her body—out the front and the back. She turned around and headed for the back of the column looking around for a discrete place to go empty her guts.

She felt eyes on the back of her head, but when she looked around she didn’t see anycreature watching her. She was starting to get paranoid when finally caught a red flash slipping through her peripheral vision. Oh, that bitch was stalking her. That was the last fucking straw.

Lyra set a big fake smile on her face, turned around one hundred and eighty degrees so that Vindaloo couldn’t hide from her, and trotted over, stepping high through the chest-deep snow. “Hey. Vin. Can I call you Vin? I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

Vindaloo took half a step back. “What?”

“I just wanted to know what crawled up your ass and died?”

“You,” said Vindaloo dryly.

“You should be so lucky. You’ve had a hardon for me from the moment we met. What is it now? Am I Discord come back from the dead to personally plague you?”

Vindaloo snorted. “Discord isn’t dead.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“And you’re slinking suspiciously around the back of my refugees.”

Lyra groaned. “I’m slinking around because the fried fly you made us for lunch is going right through me, and I need to find a place to have the trots.”

Vindaloo threw her head back and laughed. “Oh fuck, of course.”

“You’re not upset I insulted your cooking?” Lyra felt a little disappointed; she’d hoped to hit Vindaloo right in the cutie mark with that comment.

Vindaloo wrinkled up her snout and snorted. “I guess you really are new here. There’s no way to make bloatfly taste good. We eat them because the thestrals are good at catching them. Go. Behind those trees. I’ll stay behind and keep watch.”

Lyra barely made it out of her clothes before the first wave of sickness hit. Her guts clenched in agony, ejecting what felt like everything she’d eaten in the past day. Then the past week. Every time she thought it was done, a new wave hit her. “Oh, I hate this place so much,” she moaned, rocking back and forth. What was the point of having to kill all those raiders to survive, if she was just going to die of dehydration?

But at last, her guts settled. Her throat felt raw, her mouth tasted like vomit, and her ass felt like the raiders had gotten to her after all. She cleaned herself up as best she could with snow, dried off with her towel, pulled her clothes back on, and wobbled back over to Vindaloo.

“You survived,” she said, offering her a drink of water. “Do you feel better?”

“A little. I never want to eat one of those things again.”

“You’ll get used to it,” said Vindaloo.

Lyra took a deep breath. This was her chance to talk herself up and get in Vindaloo’s good graces. “So… um… I think I can help you guys. You’ve seen that I can fix things, and I’m a unicorn, so I can help you with my magic…”

Vindaloo glared at her. “Oh, the spoiled little unicorn who crawled out of her stable because it wasn’t cozy enough thinks she can help.”

“I beg your fucking problem?”

“You heard me. I was eight years old when the megaspells fell. I’d just gotten my cutie mark the week before. All the rich unicorns headed for their stables, but we had to go to a municipal fallout shelter. How safe do you think those things were?”

Lyra gulped. “Um? Not very?”

“The principality packed us in there like rats, three to a cot. The shielding was leaky. All of us got radiation poising. I watch my family die in agony, vomiting blood, fur falling out in clumps. Then the food started to run low. The guards wouldn’t let us out. They said it wasn’t safe outside. They said we could get by eating the dead. So we started with them.” Vindaloo stopped and shook herself off. “But the guards were right. It wasn’t safe out there. As far as I know, I’m the only survivor from my shelter.”

Lyra felt the cold chill of dread in her belly. “Oh my Harmony, that’s awful. I can’t even imagine.”

“Damn right you can’t, with your fancy job and your fancy unicorn school, and…”

That was it. Suffering didn’t make up for Vindaloo being a tribalist cunt. “Okay, first, my pegasus husband was the breadwinner. Secondly, I didn’t go to a fancy school, I went to four fancy schools. I went to fucking Sparklesori magic kindergarten, I went to CSGU, I did my undergrad at CIM and… Ahhhuugggh!”

Vindaloo slammed into Lyra’s side and knocked her onto her back. Buried in snow, there was nothing in the world but Lyra and the psychotic tribalist trying to strangle her. She drew magical energy into her horn, but she didn’t know what to do. Vindaloo was too close to make a shield without cutting off her hooves, and the last three times she’d tried to use a self-defense bolt it’d killed the target. She didn’t want to kill Vindaloo; Crispy would throw her out for sure! But as the edges of her vision began to darken, she started to think she might have no choice.

“Vin! Vin! What are you doing?” yelled Crispy.

“She’s from the Hive! She admitted it! She said she was from CIM! I knew she was a spy!”

“Aw for… Vin, can you please get off the New Pony?”

Lyra sat up and shook the snow out of her ears. She was impressed Crispy had been able to get back here from the front of the line so quickly. Paneer clung to his back, looking between Lyra and her mom, an expression of bafflement and concern on her face.

“Is this true, New Pony? Are you from CIM?” asked Crispy.

“Oh. My. Harmony. You fucking idiots. I did my undergrad at CIM before the war. I don’t know what’s happened there since then, but whatever it is, I’m not a part of it.”

Crispy nodded. “So you’re not a hiveling.”

“I don’t even know what that is. Is that some kind of slur for changelings?”

“What? You’re just going to take her word for it?” said Vindaloo, waving her forelegs fervently at Lyra.

“There aren’t any changelings and more. Just hivelings. And taking her word for it is all I can do. She’s helped us. She’s good with machines, and she’s good with magic. We can use her. I don’t care if she’s Discord himself if she keeps us alive one. More. Fucking. Day.”

Lyra stuck her tongue out at Vindaloo. “Told you so.”

Vindaloo blew out through her nose. “It’s a mistake to trust her.”

“Vin, you’re paranoid, and I admire that. But you’ve gotta respect a hiveling that thinks to fake getting sick from your cooking.”

“Try to find me another pony who can make bloatfly palatable, asshole.” But she smiled when she said it.

Crispy smiled back at her, then turned and stuck a hoof out at Lyra. “Now you. Don’t look all wronged and innocent. I know you started this. Don’t think I didn’t hear. Now you listen to me, and you listen well. Don’t think I’m on your side. Vindaloo’s a Major in the Minutemares. You’re just another refugee. We’re keeping you with us because you’re an asset. The moment you stop being an asset, you’re out on your ass. So you learn to get along with her. Not the other way around. Understood?”

Lyra blinked. She’d let herself think Crispy was on her side against Vindaloo. That wasn’t the case. Her shoulders slumped and she looked down at her hooves. “Understood.”

Paneer gave Lyra a sympathetic look as she trudged off towards the middle of the line of refugees. She didn’t want to be near Crispy or Vindaloo right now.

Level 6
Perk: Zesty Gourmand. You have sampled the worst wasteland cuisine has to offer, and come away stronger. Your poison resistance is increased by 20%, and you can eat anything commonly considered 'food' without fear of food poisoning.

Next Chapter: Chapter 7: Pukwudgie Fever+ Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 22 Minutes