Chapter 15: Blood of the Fallen
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”

What does it truly mean to lose something?

In the Wasteland, everyone loses something, usually a lot more than we expect while we live in youth. Perhaps some colts and fillies are taught that they should expect loss or have to experience it early on to truly learn what the feeling of loss is. I was one of those fillies; the unfortunates who lose what they love at such a young age that we forget what it felt like by the time we grow up. When I finally went out into the world, I could barely remember who Mama was, let alone how I felt when she didn’t come back that night.

Then there are those who go through their lives without losing much of anything. Maybe they are robbed by a wandering thief, or they lose their favorite gun, but they don’t lose anything truly important to them. Until the day when the Wasteland has decided they’ve gone long enough with everything they started with. One of their greatest friends is killed, or their love is taken away without even so much as a warning. I think that would be worse, because how would they know how to deal with such a loss?

Do they give up and forget what it means to live? Or do they give themselves over to revenge until they get back at the one responsible for their loss? Honestly, I couldn’t say which one is better, or which one I would have turned to if the Wasteland started taking even more from me than I already lost in my youth. I would like to think I could have coped, that I could have accepted the loss and found a way to move on without the thing I cared about so much, but I don’t think it’s possible to truly do that unless you’ve already lost something.

I think Charmer had already learned that lesson long before her home was burned and the stallion she loved was taken away from her. I couldn’t imagine what she felt the day her mom died, or what she went through in the following weeks and months, but whatever it was I liked to think that she figured out how to go on. Even after Shanty was reduced to ash, she still managed to find an excuse to smile, a reason to laugh, and something to keep her going. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a mask to hide what was happening to her under the burns, but at least she was trying.

When my father took away my childhood, it was the first time I truly had to learn that lesson. I wanted to give up more than once, just end the misery and pain that I felt day in and day out while the other children in Zeza went about their usual lives. I didn’t realize until later why it had hurt so bad. Plenty of mares in the Wasteland had been raped both before and after I was; Tinker was one of them and she never seemed quite as ruined by it as I was, perhaps because the pain of her parents’ deaths overshadowed the feelings of what she’d gone through.

No, it hurt more because of who did it to me. I not only lost my innocence and my childhood; I lost the one who was supposed to protect me and love me. Everything that a filly was supposed to have at my age was stolen in a single act, and it left me with nothing. My brother was the only reason I didn’t give up on life entirely, because I couldn’t stand to leave him. I dragged myself closer to him at every chance, both physically and emotionally, just to find some light in my hell of a life.

And maybe that’s what loss is truly about; gaining it back. Not in the way of replacing what we lose or taking back what was taken away from us, I don’t think either of those are ever possible to achieve, not truly. You can’t replace what you loved, because it will never be the same as what was taken. Instead, I think that losing is the world’s way of getting you to find something new that you never realized you needed. Even if you don’t see it at first, everyone that finally manages to move on has something or someone that they turned to as their reason to keep trying.

For me, I think it was my brother. I lost my life and my father that night, but would I really be as close to Felix if it had never happened? Without my need to find something strong to keep me up and that desire to keep going for his sake, I didn’t think I would have been able to find the same comfort in him. I wouldn’t have had the reason to get so close and stay so close that I was almost dependent on him. No, we didn’t always get along, but when was the last time you saw a brother and sister who didn’t fight or get on each other’s last nerve? It wasn’t perfect, and maybe that was my fault for being so desperate to keep him close, but I loved him and always will. He was all I had, and I couldn’t lose that.

And if I did, would I ever be able to find something new to keep me going?

The days following Seer’s death were tough on all of us, just for different reasons. I think Felix took it the hardest; he had hardly said a thing to any of us for a few days after they got back from New Oatleans and spent most of his time in a corner of the shack reading. The only one he really talked to was Tinker, and even then it was sporadic and short, only a few words between them to check how the other was doing before the colt was back in his book. I tried to see how he was feeling a few times, but all I ever got in response was a quick “I’m fine,” and he fell silent again.

I could tell that he was hurting and lying about it, maybe even to himself, but I couldn’t get him to open up about it. All he cared to do was fall into a book and forget where he was, completely tuning out the world around him like he had back in Zeza. When he was younger it was always something that made me smile when he spent an afternoon reading because he was happy when he did it, it was his favorite thing in the world to do. But now it was just sad, and I couldn’t think of any way to cheer him up that would actually work.

I would sit beside him and peer over his shoulder, hoping that he might read it out loud to me like he used to back home until I got lost and ended up asking questions about some things he had said. But that never happened, he stayed silent and scanned the pages, only moving to turn a page and then freezing in place to read the new passages. I wasn’t even sure he noticed me beside him.

Tinker usually stayed close to him, but didn’t try to talk much. She would sleep nearby when she could, but otherwise she would mess around with the scrap that was piled outside the shack. I’d done a little cleaning after letting them know I wasn’t staying in Caesar’s Stand to clear out some space from the little shack; I had decided that even though me and Felix were still welcome, I would rather stay out with them to make sure they were okay until we finally found a more permanent home for them.

The filly never finished any of the projects that she started, and in her corner were almost a dozen little constructs that I couldn’t even begin to guess the future purpose of. Some of them looked more like trash than anything useful, and I had an urge to throw them out just to reduce the clutter around the little pony, but I didn’t want to risk upsetting her over something so small. So they sat in the corner untouched until Tinker picked them up again and started making additions only to put them aside still-unfinished.

I only tried to talk to her once, but decided it was pointless when she never even replied. Just like she had back in the riverbed camp, the filly tinkered around with whatever she was working on while I tried to talk until my presence somehow offended her and she moved beside Felix and curled up to sleep. I wished she would just try talking to me, but apparently there was something she didn’t like about me, and that ate at me for a few hours. But I decided she would just need some time to realize I wasn’t bad, or whatever it was she thought of me, and stayed away from her for our time in the shack.

Charmer hadn’t changed much from her usual silence that she usually kept ever since Shanty, but since we didn’t have anywhere to go she slept a lot. Almost every time I saw her she was curled up in the corner snoozing, her one eye shut while the eternal gap in the other side of her head was hidden against her chest. She spent a day or two like that, hardly moving and almost dead already, as if she didn’t care to prove that she was still alive.

By the time the third day rolled around, she started moving around more and actually asked me if we could go out and stretch our legs a little. To me that was much more appealing than sitting around for another day, so the two of us went on a walk. We both loaded up our guns just in case and left my old pistol with Felix; the two young ones didn’t want to join us, and I didn’t feel like trying to argue with him over it. If they wanted to stay back they could.

Charmer’s shotgun felt strange where it was slung on my side from the weight in comparison to the small pistol I was used to carrying, but we both agreed that Felix would be better off with the pistol than the shotgun or rifle. So I took the short pump-action and Charmer slung Seer’s old rifle around her neck. It was a little weird to look at without the little ball dangling off the sight, but Charmer felt that it wouldn’t have helped her shoot the thing any better. It sounded wrong to take it off so soon after the zebra had died, but I guess that in the Wasteland practicality had to come before sentiment.

Still, I couldn’t stand to see it go away, and quickly offered to keep it for Seer. Felix pointed out that it should be kept on the rifle like I thought, but Charmer’s argument quickly convinced him that she was right, and the colt agreed that me holding it would be better than just throwing it out. And so the shiny little ball found a new home around my neck with the help of a bit of old twine that was mixed in with the pile of junk from the shack. It surprised me how cold the ball felt all the time; even after a few hours tucked into the neck of my jacket it still chilled my chest where it rested, but I could ignore it most of the time.

When we finally started out on our walk Charmer took the lead, even though she didn’t know where she wanted to go either. The only thing she said was that she didn’t want to go south toward New Oatleans or Caesar’s Stand, and I couldn’t have agreed more. Wherever we did end up didn’t really matter, it was just nice to finally get some time out of our rickety home.

After almost an hour of walking to the east, Charmer stopped and turned to me casually. “Do you know how to shoot that?” she asked calmly and nodded to the shotgun on my side. I shook my head. “Maybe we should stop and teach you then,” she offered. “At least so you can know what to do if we get attacked by something.”

“Sure,” I agreed with a smile and pulled the shotgun from my side.

Charmer sat down beside me and pulled a box of ammo from my bag. She struggled to open it with her hooves for a second, but after it opened up she didn’t have much trouble pulling out a few shells and setting them aside. “Okay, I’ll show you how to load it first.”

The pony took the shotgun and pulled back the grippy thing on the bottom of the gun with her hoof, thankfully a convenient little loop was attached to it for hooves. “These things are easier for unicorns, so don’t be worried if it takes a while to figure out,” Charmer explained and pushed a shell into a slot on the side of the gun. “You put the first shell in here,” the mare stated and pushed the loop forward to chamber the shot. “Now it’s ready to shoot, but you need more than one in a real fight.”

I nodded as she showed me the rest of the loading process, making sure to take mental notes so I wouldn’t forget it when it was my turn to load the gun. She made it look easy, and I could tell she had done it a lot in her life, that and I constantly wondered how she could somehow grip the shells with her hoof.

When she finished, the pony cocked the loop seven times to kick out the shells and pushed the gun over to me. “Now you try.”

I was not nearly as good as Charmer was. Pulling back the loop to open the chamber was easy enough, but after that I fell apart. I tried grabbing the shells with my hoof like she had, but it just didn’t work. All I did was move them around in the dirt while she watched until I finally got the sense to use my teeth. Shotgun shells taste bad by the way.

When I finally got the first shot loaded Charmer nodded to me and assured me again. “Don’t get frustrated with it, you just need to practice.”

I nodded and groaned to myself before looking back down to pick up the next shell, once again deciding to try my hoof first and failing before getting another taste of old metal and plastic. It took a few minutes, but I finally got the gun fully loaded and ready to fire.

“Good job, that’s the hard part,” Charmer commented and grinned to me. I smiled back and felt a little warm that she was finally smiling again. “Now we can shoot it and practice pumping.”

“Pumping?” I asked and flicked my brow.

“Yeah, you have to pump it after each shot before you can shoot it again,” she explained. “You didn’t know that?”

No, I thought the pump was only there to load it! Why couldn’t every gun be as easy as my pistol was?

I shook my head and looked at the gun with a confused stare before Charmer took it from me again and held it in her hooves. “Like I said, these are easier for unicorns. For those of us without magic, it actually takes effort to get used to.” She grinned and put her hoof in the loop.

“There aren’t any for non-unicorns?” I asked and looked at the gun with a newfound irritation.

“There are, but they’re hard to find and expensive,” she told me and looked back to the shotgun. “And pumps feel better anyways.” I groaned again and she smirked. “So, to start you need to figure out which hoof feels better in the pump. For me, it feels better to pump it with my right hoof.” The pony stood up and lifted the gun in her jaw with her hoof still in the loop. It didn’t look like a very comfortable position.

“When you shoot it, keep your grip tight enough to hold on, but not too tight or you’ll get one hell of a headache,” she slurred around the grip in a way that I could only just understand what she said.

The gun thundered and sprayed the air in front of her with pellets, but I didn’t pay attention to that. I was watching to see how she pumped it, and again it hardly looked comfortable. After each of her three shots the pony’s hoof slammed back and forth to load the next shell with a threatening cha-chink until she stopped and looked over to me with a wide smile around the grip.

She passed the gun over and helped me put my right hoof in the loop before pointing me out into the desert. “Take your time with the pumping, because it will feel weird at first and you don’t want to lose your balance.”

Her saliva was still on the grip when I put it in my mouth, and it was really, really weird to think about that. It didn’t upset me, it just felt strange and stuck in my mind for a moment, but for some reason I wasn’t completely comfortable with the thought of her spit in my mouth; I should have wiped the grip off first. My focus turned back to the gun and my hoof in the leather strap before I pulled the trigger and blasted the empty Wasteland with metal, and then came the challenge of getting my hoof to pull the right way for the pump to work. I wanted to pull down, not toward myself, it was so wrong! But after a few seconds I figured it out and grinned to myself.

I repeated the process three more times before the gun was empty, and I still didn’t like the feel of pumping the thing. Charmer walked me through loading it again and tried to help me work on picking up the shells with my hoof, but it still didn’t work for me so I just used my teeth. After loading it I went back to shooting again, this time without Charmer demonstrating and leaving the grip wet, except she wanted me to try my left hoof on the pump.

It felt a little better, but I still couldn’t get myself to be comfortable with the pumping; I almost jammed the gun at one point when I didn’t pull the loop back far enough before Charmer stopped me and showed me the problem. I wanted my pistol back.

Rather than continue practicing, Charmer loaded the shotgun fully again and gave it back to me before slinging her rifle and turning to continue our walk. “You did good for your first time, just practice pumping it when we don’t have anything to do,” she told me and smiled. “But for now we shouldn’t use up all of our ammo on practice. We can practice shooting again if we find more.”

“I could do that,” I agreed and smiled. I had never done any shooting except in a fight, but I liked the idea of practicing. Maybe then I could actually be better and not miss so much when I wasn’t at point blank. Plus it gave me and Charmer something to do, and maybe the two young ones could join in too; it was better than sitting around in sad silence, right?

I lashed the shotgun back under the straps of my saddlebag and trotted off after Charmer in a much better mood than I had been for days, and I hoped she felt the same.

I couldn’t think of anything to say to Charmer yet again, so I just sat beside her silently while she stared down at the dirt. Her eye was locked onto one of the depressed points in the ground where the dirt had been disturbed and unpacked until the storm soaked it down. They were all in a perfect line beside the road across from where Shanty used to be, and Charmer hadn’t even needed to guess which one was the grave she wanted to see.

The skeleton of the town still sent shivers through my body when we crested the hill to see it, and my mood had sunk instantly from where it had been after the shooting lesson from the pony beside me. Even after the storm the ruins were haunting and dreary in my eyes, and I doubted that Charmer felt any differently about that. I thought about asking why she would want to go back to that place again, but when she turned straight for the graves I pushed that thought out one ear and followed her.

As usual she wasn’t crying or saying a word, even if I was waiting for her to tell an inappropriate story about the stallion who rested under the sunken spot before us. Instead she looked like a sorrowful statue over the grave, and I wondered what she was thinking about. The temptation to get her talking grew with every moment we sat there, but I couldn’t figure out if it would be better for her or if I should leave her to silently mourn the loss of her lover. She hadn’t gotten much time after the burial with night falling, and since then we had been on the move so much that she never had a chance to go back. To be honest, I was surprised she wanted to at all.

I knew that some zebras back home would visit the cemetery where their loved ones were buried on occasion, but I never understood the appeal. I always imagined that the loss would carry such sorrow and hurt that simply seeing the grave again would be enough to tear apart even the strongest individual; a lot like how Minx felt about going back to see her family.

That was the reason I never wanted to go with my father to see the place where Mama had been buried after her death. Felix went once or twice, but after a while they just stopped going. I always assumed that the pain from seeing her grave was too much to take, even for my brother who had never even known the mare. Father told me I should go and see her, and that wherever Mama was it would make her happy, but I couldn’t bear to do it. I remembered how bad the funeral was for me, and I think that was what kept me away from the cemetery even before Father restricted me from leaving the house.

It even hurt just to look at Strike’s grave, and I had only known him for a few days, so I couldn’t imagine what Charmer must have felt. But even if it was the greatest pain she had ever known I couldn’t see it on her face. At least not for a while, not until her eye started to twitch around and gleam with tears that fought to finally escape from the stoic mare. It almost looked painful how hard she was trying to hold it back, like she was afraid to show her sorrow to the world and would rather die than let anyone know how she truly felt.

So I stood up and took a step back, thinking that if I was gone she could finally let out the sadness that had been bottled up in her ever since that horrible day when her life was burned to ash. A spark flashed in my mind and reminded me of what I had in my bag, and told me that if there was a time to give it to the pony, it was now. Sure, I could wait until she wasn’t on the verge of tears and give her Strike’s final gift at a happier time, but I already felt bad enough for how long I had kept it away from her; especially after the funeral when she mentioned that she was waiting for him to pop the question.

I dug into the bag on my side and pulled out the necklace with the fangs and the ring dangling lovingly at the center. For another minute I just stared down while it dangled in my mouth, watching the ring gently wobble back and forth to ding gently against the snake’s fangs in the breeze. A bit of my mind still told me I should hold onto it until she actually had time to grieve rather than making Strike’s death even more painful for the mare, but most of my mind told me she would want it, even if it was a painful reminder of her lost love.

I stepped back forward silently and placed the necklace in the dirt that covered the grave, and hoped that the pony wouldn’t spin and pummel me for keeping it away from her. Instead she looked up to me with her one moist eye. “What’s that?” she asked half-confused.

I swallowed and looked over to her, bracing myself for whatever she would do. “Strike was holding it when I found him,” I explained somberly. “I think it was for you.”

The pony looked back down at the band and lifted it from the dirt in her hooves. After a few seconds, whatever strength she was using to hold back the tears in her eye faded and poured a stream down the curve of her cheek and muzzle.

“Why did you keep it so long?” she asked shakily while her eyes looked over every detail.

“I didn’t want to make his death worse for you,” I explained softly and tried not to tear up with her. I wasn’t even sure why it was so hard for me, I had only known Strike for a few days, and I’d only known Charmer a week longer than that. Maybe it was the sight of someone mourning their love that hit me, but I wasn’t completely sure.

She mouthed something down at the necklace or the grave, I couldn’t tell which, but I couldn’t make it out. Whatever it was, it cut off with a quick sob.

Before the knot in my throat could get any bigger, I stepped back from Charmer and started trotting off to the town so she could have time to herself. There wasn’t anything else I could do for her, and I had a feeling that what I had done just made the moment even worse for her.

There was no blood left behind the rock where I had been shot days before, but I could still picture the red splashed over the stone and pooled in the sand where I had been lying. Even though I never actually saw it, I could imagine the blood as it trickled down the rock mixed in with the rain to stain the dirt underneath my limp body; a sight I thanked myself for avoiding at the time. I couldn’t actually remember much from those minutes I spent clinging onto life as it slipped away in the storm, and only got small moments of it here and there as I stared at the rock.

The rifle which had almost sealed my fate was still resting where it had fallen, sunken slightly into the sand and starting to rust lightly where the metal was exposed. The pony bodies were nowhere to be seen, but drag lines through the dirt gave me at least some hint that someone or something had taken them away from the places they fell. Gleaming casings from my gun and the pony’s rifle stuck from the dirt here and there; makeshift tombstones for the souls they claimed.

I wasn’t sure why I decided to go see the spot I almost died; it was probably foolish that I desired it at all, or that it had crossed my mind. But there was little else I could do while I gave Charmer her time to visit with Strike, and even fewer places for me to go in the skeleton of Shanty. Everywhere I looked were places that ponies had died so it wasn’t like I could escape the aura of death, so I had decided I should go look around that cave and make sure none of my things had been left behind when Minx and Solus packed up to take me back to town. But when I caught sight of the spot where I was shot, I couldn’t seem to look away or walk passed.

The scars on my belly and chest throbbed as the image of the rifle’s flash filled my mind, but it only lasted a moment before I was back to the present. My coat tingled where blood had streamed through it and down to the ground, and the ghostly echo of a gunshot filled my ears to mark the point in my recollection when Minx had shot my would-be-killer. After that it was fuzzy, only snippets of the two zebras crouched beside me and putting things in my body to stop the bleeding.

My eyes drifted over to an empty bottle that had been semi-buried since the storm. A colorful stain marked the bottom where unused potion had come to a rest and dried up. I didn’t know if potions stayed in your body after it was poured over a wound, but if it did that was where the rest of it was; flowing through my veins after doing its job of sealing the holes that were punched into me.

I was still awake when they dumped the bottle over my underside, and I remembered that it killed the pain slightly, replacing it with a tingling as whatever was in the fluid worked its magic on my injuries and replaced the skin where it had been taken by the hot lead. But that couldn’t have been enough, because if it was I would have stood up and been fine, right? That was how magic healing worked; at least that’s how I thought it did.

No, there must have been something worse, I thought to myself and turned my head to look around more. I should have just stopped and stood up to go check on Charmer, which would have been the smart thing to do. Reminiscing over my own near-death really didn’t make any sense or change anything; so what if I knew what had happened? I was still alive, and that was what mattered, at least it should have been. But instead I kept looking around to figure out more of what exactly had happened from the time I was shot to when I finally blacked out and couldn’t remember any more.

A small silver syringe stuck up from the dirt near the potion bottle with its sharp tip hidden under the ground where it wouldn’t stick into an unsuspecting traveler. Something was written on the side in faded block-lettering, but I couldn’t make it out. It must have been some kind of drug, probably a painkiller or something similar to that, because it was too small to be a potion.

I didn’t remember exactly when it had been pushed into my body, but I guessed that it had something to do with why I couldn’t remember being carried away or much of anything at all. Whatever it was, I was okay with it for at least trying to keep the memory and pain away for a time.

Right beside it was a very familiar needle, and one of the few things I couldn’t forget about being treated by Minx. A shiver rippled down my spine at the sight and I instantly turned away from the cluster of needles that seemed to have strips of skin growing off of the ends.

This will make everything better, sweetheart. Just stay still.

I stumbled to my hooves and trotted away from the rock back toward Shanty, desperate to get the needle out of my mind and replace it with anything else. I didn’t even notice Charmer had come up behind me before I slammed into her and sent both of us tumbling into the dirt.

“Did I scare you?” she asked plainly and pushed me off of her.

I groaned and rolled to my hooves, making sure that I didn’t even look in the direction of the Hydra needle that stuck from the dirt. “Uh, yeah, I didn’t hear you come up,” I lied nervously. Her eye was red and still a little moist, but other than that I could hardly tell the mare had been crying. The ring and fang necklace was fit tightly around her neck, and I wondered how she had gotten it on with only her hooves.

“What are you doing over here anyways?” the pony asked as she stood up and brushed some of the dirt from her chest.

“Oh, just looking around,” I quickly answered. “I didn’t want to bother you or anything.”

“Right,” she sarcastically agreed and looked around. “Well I think we can head back if you’re ready. Wouldn’t want to worry the other young ones,” she told me and grinned.

“Yeah, sounds good.” Against my best intentions, my eyes flashed a quick look back toward the rock before I left, but all they saw was the cluster of dirty needles sticking out of the dirt behind it.

See? It’s all better.

My eyes drifted over the dirt while we made our way back to our temporary home outside of Caesar’s Stand, but I didn’t actually see anything there. It was just a sheet of brown running endlessly through my mind that didn’t even register as my memories swam years in the past. The dirty needles poked at my mind constantly and kept me from realizing where I actually was, doing everything they could to keep me in the darkness of my time with Father.

His bedroom was never a place I enjoyed, yet it was the one place I remembered most about my old home. Dirt always covered the walls like everything else in the Wasteland, but somehow it seemed so much worse in that particular room. The floor was no different, but I could tell that at one time long ago it used to be nice; small shards of tile still hung in the corners where scavengers hadn’t been able to rip them up since the bombs fell, but they still looked nicer than the stained and littered chipped plywood that was left behind.

It was barely big enough for the makeshift bed he had thrown into the center of the room and left just enough space to walk around the edges without stepping on the hay that made up the mattress. His old smelly armor was always piled up in the corner to stink up the room just enough to notice it, but I could ignore it after only a few minutes so I guess it could have been worse. And of course it was always dark. I always thought he must enjoy the darkness, because he boarded up the window years before he started ‘inviting’ me in. Something about that managed to make the entire place just a little bit worse; not being able to see anything perfectly, but still enough light so that I could recall every little detail that I managed to notice over the years.

Actually the only thing about that room I didn’t think I could remember was how he looked. Outside of the room I remembered everything about him; the way he walked, how he talked to me and every line in his face that formed over the years of abusing me. But inside I couldn’t recall anything about what he looked like; only what he felt like. I didn’t look at him in there, which may have been why I could remember the room so well; I was always looking at the walls or the floor, anywhere but at him.

It was only his hooves that stuck in my mind, and only from one afternoon; the afternoon when that needle was in his hooves and hovering over me.

And I remembered his voice.

“Shayle?”

My head shot up and spun to my left where Charmer was walking. A quick burn hit my wide eyes and I blinked a few times like I had just woken up from a nap I didn’t know I was taking. “What?” I quickly asked in my confusion and tried to remind myself that I wasn’t in that room anymore, and never would be.

“Are you alright? You’ve been staring at the ground for almost an hour now,” she pointed out with a concerned look on her face.

“Oh, yeah. I’m just thinking,” I lied and turned my gaze to the front. We were almost to the spot where the raiders had ambushed us the day me and Felix had originally left Shanty, and I could faintly see the burnt rubble a little ways down the highway ahead of us.

“You do that more than is healthy,” the pony commented playfully. She must have caught my questioning glance over to her, because she quickly continued. “You spaced out just like that when we were taking Tinker and the others home.”

I thought only Seer had noticed that. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“You seem a little young to have that much on your mind.” The mare nudged me lightly on the shoulder and grinned. “Try to lighten up. You don’t see me staring at the dirt for hours on end, do you?”

No, but she did sleep a lot, and she hadn’t exactly said much recently either. “Not on walks,” I argued, trying to sound a little light hearted but failing.

Charmer’s face scrunched up and she looked away from me, but her eye still swiveled to look at me. “So you can notice some things.” She sounded a little upset, but not so bad that I felt like she was angry with me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You haven’t exactly been the best at seeing how others feel, Shayle.” The pony looked back at me with her nose still shrunk up. Before I could even try to argue she broke in and continued. “I’m honestly surprised you haven’t tried to dump me in another new town yet.”

“I was never going to dump you somewhere,” I quickly gasped.

“Right, not like you did at Spur?” Her gaze hardened.

“That was different.”

“Because you didn’t know I wanted to stay with you yet?” she asked as her voice grew louder.

“Well,” I stopped and flicked my tail. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess so? That’s the only reason I’m still here,” she snapped. “If I hadn’t told you then you would have left me in Spur, alone.”

I considered arguing that there were other ponies there, and that she wouldn’t be alone with them around, but then I remembered that we’d already gone through that one time before. She didn’t care about others being around if she didn’t know them, so she would still say that she was alone even in the middle of a bustling pre-war city.

“And what about Tinker?” the frustrated mare continued. “Are you gonna drop her off in some random town just because you think she needs a home?”

“She does need one,” I argued. “And an old shed in a field isn’t a home!”

“What would you know about that?” Charmer stopped and stomped her hoof in the dirt. “You and your brother were covered in dirt and grime, lost in the middle of nowhere when we found you. Do you even know what a home is?”

“It’s where you live,” I told her and huffed. “It’s somewhere safe to sleep at night.”

“That’s a house,” she told me. “Home is wherever the ones you care about are. That shack is her home now, and it’s yours and mine too.”

“I don’t want that to be our home,” I yelled.

Charmer opened her mouth but closed it without a word. She wanted to say something, and to keep arguing that I was wrong about where we lived, but instead she started walking again. When she passed me, the pony tilted her head to me and grumbled. “Then go where you want to live, but the rest of us aren’t going anywhere yet.”

I didn’t follow her at first, in fact my hooves felt like they were rooted to the dirt where I stood. I didn’t understand what I had said that was so wrong, or why she was so adamant about not finding a new home. She had seemed happy to be settled down in Shanty, and I doubted that her time travelling around with us was something she considered as pleasant or somehow better than town-life. She had known us for less than a month, so would it really be so hard to make new friends wherever she ended up? Friends who didn’t drag her to dangerous places and who she could actually talk to more than she talked with us?

Or was there some other reason that she was sticking around with us that I just hadn’t picked up on yet? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to ask her as she walked away from me in a fit. Whatever it might be, I would just have to wait and find out, because despite her insistence that I didn’t need to stick around I didn’t plan on leaving. I had my brother to take care of, and I wanted to make sure her and Tinker stayed safe until the home thing was all sorted out too. I had a feeling that could be a while, but maybe she would come around and realize that squatting outside of Caesar’s Stand was no home for her.

But for the time I wasn’t going to push it anymore; she wasn’t going to listen. So I finally got my hooves out of the dirt and started walking behind her just as my belly growled and ached.

I hadn’t been paying attention to how long we were out, but apparently it was too long according to my stomach and it was time to eat. I craned my neck around to my bag while I walked and hoped that no rocks would stick up to trip me while I grabbed a quick snack. At least I wanted to grab a snack until I realized there was no such thing in my bag. All I had was a bottle of water and the spare shells for the shotgun, but no food.

I grit my teeth and cursed myself for forgetting food even after how much Seer had pounded the idea into my head about how important it was, and turned my attention back to the walk back to the shack. I tried to distract myself for a while, something that wasn’t too hard since my brain had the argument with Charmer to mull over, but it didn’t last long before my stomach warned me of its emptiness again.

I would have tried to make it back before getting food, but we were still a couple hours away, and without anything to completely distract myself it would just get worse and worse. So I took a deep breath and jogged up to Charmer’s side.

“Hey, Charmer?” I quietly asked. “Do you have any snacks?”

“You didn’t pack any?” she asked in agitation and swiveled her eye to me.

“I guess not,” I replied regretfully and prayed that she wasn’t upset enough to deny me a little food.

“Damn kids forget everything,” she grumbled and stopped to check her own bags. I squinted a little at the comment, but didn’t bother to bring it up to her. After a few seconds of shuffling through her equipment, the pony lifted her head up and tossed a can over to me.

After narrowly stopping the tin from hitting me in the nose, I nodded a ‘thank you’ to the mare and sat down to get the thing open. “It’s all I’ve got left, so enjoy it,” she told me and kept walking.

After almost a minute of fiddling with the little knobby thing on top of the can I managed to pull it open and lick up some of the pureed veggie paste inside. Honestly it tasted terrible, but at least it was something. After getting a little taste I rested the can on my tail and jogged to catch up with the pony. By the time I got there, my belly groaned for another bite and I stopped to pull the can off my tail and force down another glob of the greenish paste.

This quickly became a pattern that eventually got a small smirk out of Charmer, and I realized that she was taking a bit too much joy in my attempts at eating and keeping up at the same time. “Can we stop for just a minute so I can finish this?” I finally asked after repeating the process of eating and jogging four times.

“I’d rather not.” The mare sneered and picked up her pace a little.

“Why not? It would only be a minute!” I pleaded and sped up to meet her.

“Because watching you eat is making me hungry, so I wanna get back and get some food too.” And I’m sure that’s the only reason she had.

“We could share,” I offered and pushed my tail toward her with the can.

“I’ll pass.” She shook her head and continued walking.

Oh well, more for me.

“What do you mean we’re out of food?” Charmer snapped and shoved her head into Felix’s bag.

My brother put down his book and looked at the two of us with a regretful stare. “We don’t have any more. Shayle and I haven’t bought any since we left Shanty,” he explained. “And I haven’t seen you or Tinker get more either.”

“You didn’t buy any those times you went into town between jobs?” the mare asked, muffled through the bag.

“No, they didn’t pay us for it,” I pointed out quickly. Charmer’s head shot out of the saddlebag and glared at me with an expression somewhere between surprise and confusion. “Our payment was getting a house in Caesar’s Stand.”

“But you aren’t living there!” she argued and waved a hoof in the general direction of the city. “So you did it for free.”

“No, we’re welcome back at any time,” I told her.

“That doesn’t help us, Shayle. We need caps for food, not a place to crash if we want to.” The pony turned back and dug into her own bag to pull out a small pouch. The bag flipped and dumped a couple caps into the dirt, but it wasn’t much. “How much does food cost there? Will this get us anything?” She had gotten through surprise and gone into a panic.

“Five caps?” Felix asked and shook his head. “If the prices are anything like in Shanty, we might be able to get one box of apple flakes.”

Charmer’s expression sank and she kicked the caps across the room.

“Did Seer have any in her bags?” Tinker piped up from the corner and quickly looked down when all of us swiveled our heads to her. “I mean, we really need it, maybe she wouldn’t mind?” the filly suggested and nodded over to Seer’s dusty bag.

Charmer stared at her for a few seconds before quickly pulling the dead zebra’s bag over and sticking her head in to look around. I don’t know why she kept doing that when it was probably easier just to hold it open and look inside. She pulled her head out after a second and dropped a jingling bag to the floor. She undid the string holding it shut and poured the caps out into a neat pile.

“That’ll work,” the pony told us with a sad smile. “Girl sure was prepared.”

We all nodded somberly as she put the caps back in the little pouch. Even though it seemed crass to take her money so quickly and without any of us offering an argument, but it was all we had. I just hoped that Seer would have been okay with us using it.

The pony stared at the bag for a few more seconds before she cinched it and looked up to me. “Do you mind doing a run into town? I can’t be the only hungry one here.”

“I’ll do it,” Felix quickly offered and stood up. I looked over at him and flicked my brow up, surprised by his sudden desire to do anything besides sit in the shed and read. “Strike taught me about picking good food, and you, uh.” He stopped and looked around like he had suddenly lost something. “You can’t count the caps,” he nervously finished and grabbed the bag.

“She can’t?” Charmer and Tinker asked in unison and looked at me.

“Yes I can,” I argued. “I learned a long time ago, I just forgot some of the numbers,” I explained and looked around to each of them. They were starting to seem amused at my outburst. “What?”

“How do you forget stuff like that?” Charmer sniggered and pointed at me. “Especially when your own brother knows how.”

My eyes narrowed and I flicked my tail violently. “Because I cleaned and did other chores at home while he went to school,” I growled. “Those things don’t require counting.”

“How about I just go, and you all can do… something, while I’m gone,” Felix quickly broke in. “Something that isn’t arguing?”

“We aren’t arguing, I was just wondering,” Charmer pointed out. “She’s the one who got defensive.”

I was not defensive! I just didn’t want them to think I was stupid or something. So what if I couldn’t count? It’s not like it was super important to be able to do that sort of thing in the Wasteland, and as long as Felix was around I never needed to worry about doing it. But instead of actually telling her that, I just grumbled and plopped down on my rump, glad that the conversation was over and I didn’t need to talk about why I never went to school with my brother.

“Can you see if they have any jerky?” I asked grumpily and scratched at the dirt with a hoof. I could feel Charmer’s eye start to burn a hole in the top of my head.

“Yes, I’ll check,” the colt said with a nod. “Any other requests?”

“Sugar Bombs?” the green mare asked and got another ‘okay’ from Felix.

Tinker leaned in and whispered something to him, I’m really not sure why, but he nodded and grinned to her before she kissed him softly on the cheek. A red hot poker stabbed into the back of my neck at the sight, and I locked my eyes onto the filly.

“Okay, I’ll be back in a little bit,” Felix told us and I think he walked straight outside. I couldn’t really tell since I was busy staring down the pony who had just kissed my brother.

After a few seconds she looked over to me and noticed, and her head dropped. The filly walked to the corner opposite of me and curled up with her junk, keeping her back to me as she tried to get to sleep.

I turned my head to Charmer, but she was busy looking over Seer’s rifle and wiping off some of the dirt from it. If there was one thing I liked most, it was being stuck in a shack with two ponies who I was suddenly not on the best terms with, so I quickly stood up. “I’m going to go with him just in case he needs help carrying something,” I told them and walked outside to follow my brother.

Neither of them said anything in response, but I did see Charmer shrug just before I went through the doorway.

“You really didn’t need to come along,” Felix told me again as he looked over a stack of cans on one of the stands around the town’s park. “I can handle a little shopping by myself.”

“I never said you couldn’t,” I pointed out from behind him. “I just haven’t gotten to spend time with you that much.”

“Shayle, we’ve been together almost every day,” he told me and pulled a rectangular tin off of a stack and set it in front of the trader.

“I meant just the two of us.” I looked around at the stands again for any jerky that might be for sale, but once again couldn’t see any that was obvious. Most stores seemed to have the same stuff for sale as far as food went, with a few carrying clothes or random equipment. “Like we used to before we left home.”

“Is this all you need?” the zebra behind the counter asked with a small grin.

“Yes,” Felix replied and counted out the caps to pay. “Thank you.” After putting the new food in his bags, the colt stepped back and turned to me with a confused tilt of his head. “So you want to talk about our days?”

“We don’t have to,” I told him and shrugged. “But I wouldn’t mind hearing what you were up to while I was with Charmer.”

“I read one of my books,” he replied simply and trotted toward the next stand. “Nothing else.”

“You didn’t talk with Tinker at all?”

“No, she was busy making something,” he explained.

“Are you sure? You two seemed pretty friendly,” I commented and looked down to him.

“Oh, yeah. We uh, I guess we kinda got together a while ago.” The young zebra scratched his head and looked up at me nervously. “At least I think so.”

“How did that happen?” I asked with mild irritation.

“It just did,” he told me and scowled. “And please don’t start that big sister thing again.”

“What ‘big sister thing’? I just wanted to know,” I quickly snipped and played dumb.

“No, you wanted to show me that you don’t approve,” he argued and glared up at me. “Just like you did with Doc.”

I flinched for a moment at that, but kept going alongside him. “Okay, so I don’t. Is that so bad?”

“Yes, it is, because you don’t have a reason to,” he continued arguing.

“Of course I do,” I snapped back. “More than one even.”

“Oh really? And what are they?” he requested.

“Well, first off you’re twelve, and she’s what, ten?”

“She’s fourteen,” he growled. “And I don’t see why that matters.”

“Because neither of you are old enough to be in a relationship with someone,” I pointed out and jabbed a hoof at him. “Especially not someone you just met a week ago.”

“And what do you know about that? I’ve never seen you dating anybody,” he quipped. “Or are you too young for it?”

“Of course I am,” I agreed, even if it wasn’t completely true in my mind.

“Okay, how old is old enough to be with someone?” Felix stopped walking and turned to me with a look of annoyance.

“I don’t know, nineteen or twenty?” I suggested with an uncertain tilt in my voice.

“Why? Because that’s when I’ll suddenly figure out relationships?” he snapped.

“Uh, yes?” Great, I didn’t even know where I was going anymore, or how to keep making my point make sense.

“You don’t even know, do you?” he asked. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want me to be with Tinker.”

“No, I don’t.”

“That’s stupid!”

“I don’t care, that’s the way it is.”

Felix’s face tightened into a look that I would almost call hatred before he turned away from me and stomped off. Seeing that look in his eyes burned away at a part of me and drowned my anger in sorrow as I realized what I had done. I just wanted to keep him close and protect him, but instead I was pushing him further and further away every time we fought. Before running away from home we almost never had an argument or yelled at each other, but out in the Wasteland we had argued more than I could ever remember doing back home.

We argued about staying in Shanty, about who would stay out in the shack with the others, about Doc and Tinker; and those were just the times I could remember. And after the last fight I could have sworn he hated me. He wasn’t just upset and would be fine again in a day, I had actually pushed him into hating me.

I needed to apologize, to tell him that I didn’t care if he was with Tinker, even if it was a lie. I wouldn’t like it, but at least I would get my brother back. If only I could get the nerve to even approach him again. I was still rooted to the spot he had stormed away from, and couldn’t stop watching him as he continued to shop for food like I wasn’t even there.

My ears filled with the thumping of my heart as I tried to figure out how I could make it right, but my hooves still wouldn’t move. I didn’t know why they seemed glued to the dirt of the park, but something stopped me from moving. The thudding of my heart grew deeper and louder until it seemed to rock my entire body with each beat, and suddenly Felix looked back at me. For a moment I almost thought he could tell what had happened to me, but then his gaze tilted upward and his still-firm scowl melted into a look of terror.

A scream ripped through the air and allowed my hooves to move just before the thunder of machine guns assaulted my ears and sent me flat on my belly.

Dirt kicked up all around me as a storm of bullets rained down on the markets and the park, swerving back and forth to shred everything caught in their path. My gaze swiveled up and for a moment my heart stopped beating at the sight of the flying machine from Spur. The guns on either side swiveled and sprayed across Caesar’s Stand, tearing into zebras and buildings alike. I could occasionally hear a quiet ping of bullets ringing against its body as the town guards returned fire, but it didn’t do anything except draw the ire of whoever was inside the machine. A hail of firepower tore across the gate and sent bits of meat and armor flying as the guards were cut down with no effort.

I didn’t understand, how was that thing even flying or attacking? Solus and Minx killed the pilot, they said they got her and that she was the only one capable of flying it! So either they were wrong, or they lied about something; I hoped it was the first one. Not that it really mattered, either way the gunship was right there, gunning down the zebras of Caesar’s Stand with nothing to stop it.

I spun my head around the market in search of a certain small zebra as the hammering of my heart rivaled the speed of the machine guns. When I didn’t see him right away I could feel a sense of pure dread overtaking me from the inside out and my chest seized. ‘He couldn’t be gone already, he would just be hiding,’ I thought to myself.

Every bit of my body screamed for me to just stay on the ground and pretend I was already dead with the hope of going unnoticed by the gunship, and each roar of lead spraying over the town reinforced that idea. My brain stopped working with each growl of firepower and only told me "don't move or else, don't move or else". But between each burst, a small bit of my brain constantly reminded me that Felix was still there and probably just as scared as I was, and I had to find him.

I had to know he was okay.

Ignoring every impulse of fear and logic to stay on the ground and wait out the attack, I jumped up and where I last saw him. I didn’t care that I was probably going to be torn apart by the death machine overhead, I didn’t even care that there didn’t seem to be anybody firing back at the thing anymore, all I cared about was finding my brother and making sure he didn’t fall into the sights of that damn pony.

With the guns focused on a different part of town, I managed to reach the stand where I saw Felix last and slid to a stop. A shredded, striped body was crumpled behind what remained of the small shop, its blood sprayed across the ground behind where they were standing. At first glance my heart sank at the thought that it must be Felix, but after a moment I realized that the remaining bits were too big to be my brother.

“Shayle!” I faintly heard a shout to my left and I spun.

Hiding under a collapsed stand was my brother, spackled with blood and shaking uncontrollably. Without hesitating I sprinted over to him and tried to wiggle into the hiding spot, but it wasn’t big enough for both of us to fit fully. I grunted and groaned as I tried to find a way to get my entire body under the battered wood, but it wasn’t working. Defeated, I stopped trying to squeeze in beside Felix and left my rump hanging out the front of his cover, silently begging and hoping that the gunship wouldn’t notice.

“Shayle, what’s going on?” Felix asked in fear as he squeezed himself as close to me as possible.

“I don’t know,” I told him softly, trying to sound half as scared as I actually was. I don’t think I succeeded, but I didn’t think Felix would care if I was afraid of a death machine.

Neither of us said anything after that, we both just huddled together silently and waited to see if it was our time to go. I wasn’t ashamed to say that I cried a lot while the constant thumping of guns and rotors bombarded my ears, and I knew that Felix was doing the same. Occasionally we could hear someone scream, but only at first, and just barely. After the first few minutes that felt like hours I didn’t hear anything except the gunship as it continued the extermination of everyone in Caesar’s Stand.

At least I was going to die with my brother, who still held me close and cried with me after everything I had said to him.

Who still loved me.

Footnote: No Levels Earned

Author’s Note:
Well, now that I’m back into it and starting off on Book II of this story, I would like to offer an extra big thanks to Kkat and Somber for their fantastic stories which created and expanded the Fallout:Equestria universe. It’s helped me through some tough times as of late, and I don’t think I would be doing half as well as I am without this world to read and write for. And again, I need to thank Doomande for commissioning the amazing Rattlesire to do the cover art of this story, as well as the artists who have drawn the fantastic fanart of this story. I can’t begin to express how happy it makes me to see my story put in pictures. And of course a huge thank you to the folks who pre-read and help me with editing this into a readable story, as well as all of you readers who continue to stick with it and keep me going on it. I hope that the second part of this story can live up to all of your expectations, and thank you all again for the support.