Chapter 4: Home
“This one speaks ‘Hello’, and this one ‘Welcome’.”

Strike had been right about Doc, she did allow us to stay for a small fee, only 10 caps. I was slightly surprised that she made the cost so low, especially after the 100 cap fee to fix me up that morning. She took our caps with a smile and showed us to our beds, which were actually two of the operating tables. Her only warning was that late-night patients took priority over us and that she’d happily flip the bed over if we didn’t move on our own. Felix took that as a joke and laughed it off, but I didn’t doubt that the filly was serious.

They weren’t the most comfortable beds ever, but at least the little pony was kind enough to provide us with her own blankets, a pair of nicely sewn quilts which seemed much too nice to be in the Wasteland. The filly took to sleeping with a ragged and torn curtain that she pulled from the wall, and didn’t seem to have any issue with that. I thought of questioning her, but a small amount of stitching on the center of the blanket stopped me. I couldn’t read it myself, but Felix whispered what it said to me: ‘Little gifts are the biggest to those who need them’.

I didn’t completely understand it, but it seemed like something important to Little Doc. And I wasn’t about to turn away the offer of a warm night’s sleep for however long we stayed, even if it meant the filly was cold. She didn’t seem to care as she trotted to her own room and closed the door behind her without a second look to us.

That was night number one of our stay, and the first sleep that Felix and I had gotten since the day before we left home. Well, the first sleep I had gotten, but the few hours Felix had been running on couldn’t really count as true sleep. Apparently we ended up sleeping a little too late, because I found myself waking up with a face full of dirt after a short drop from the table.

“That’s long enough, I might have patients soon,” Little Doc told me with a smirk, obviously proud of herself. Strangely, she didn’t wake Felix the same way, and instead nudged him with a hoof to end his sleeping. Not fair, not fair at all.

Because I was curious and suspicious, and because I was his big sister, I decided to ask Felix about it once we left the clinic to begin our preparations to leave. “So…what did you two do yesterday while I was gone?”

“You want the short version right?” he asked me knowingly. I nodded. “I saw her books on medicine and stuff, and she offered to teach me a few things if I wanted.”

“And what did you learn?”

“How to stop bleeding from gunshots, how to set broken bones, and we started on stitching,” he listed off enthusiastically. “Then we just talked until you got back.”

I looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. “Talked about what?”

“Just…you know, things,” he replied nervously, looking away from me to the nearest shop. “Oh, food! We should get that first, so we don’t forget.” He looked back to me with a big, cheesy smile. He was horrible at hiding things, but I’d figure it out, it was on my mental checklist! I couldn’t forget about it then.

“You go ahead.” I pulled out our pouch of caps and placed it in his bag. “I need to talk to Charmer; she said something about a job. Just don’t spend all of it on food,” I recommended with a smile and a quick hug.

He looked back at me with a small frown. “Another dangerous one?”

“No, I don’t even need a gun.” I hoped I wouldn’t need a gun.

“Well, okay, just hurry back.” He still looked worried, even with my assurance of safety. I guess I couldn’t blame him. We’d only been out in the world for one day and I’d already been chewed on by a ghoul, shot by Strike, mauled by Charmer, nearly strangled by a giant snake, and shot at again by bandits. If that was just one day, I wasn’t looking forward to what would happen until we finally reached wherever we decided to settle down. I hoped that the answer was ‘nothing’, but somehow I doubted it.

I nudged him with a smile before trotting off to Charmer’s shack, hoping she hadn’t left before I woke up. Three quick knocks and the door…fell into the house.

Charmer’s face greeted me from across the room with a shocked look. “Um...Sorry,” I said while looking between her and the fallen door.

“It’s okay…happens sometimes.” She lifted the door back into place, and I heard her hooves smacking along one side as she tried to reattach it to the hinges. Once she was done, the door swung open and she peeked out as if I had never knocked it over. “So, what’s going on?”

“Do you still want help with the snakes?” I asked cautiously, wondering if she was still upset about the meat argument from the night before.

“Already fed them,” she told me with a small frown. “Sorry.”

I frowned too. “No, it’s fine.” I scratched my neck with a hoof as we stared awkwardly at each other.

“Shayle, I’m sorry about last night,” she mumbled after a few seconds.

“Don’t be, I didn’t know about the ‘no meat’ thing around here. My fault,” I told her, even if I didn’t actually think it was my fault. But I didn’t want one of the few ponies that was nice to me to hate me. The mare smiled and nodded. Awkward moment over, back to normal Charmer…or, what I thought was normal Charmer after one day with her.

During the few minutes I was gone, apparently Felix had run into Strike again. Apparently another effect of the small town was that it wasn’t hard for the ponies there to spot us since we were the only two zebras around. The horned-pony had apparently gone looking for us to see if we needed any help getting ready to go, and was with Felix at the same food shack I left him at. The pony was pointing out which foods were best for travelling, and which ones we should leave alone.

“If it’s closed up, like this box of Apple Bombs, take it. It’ll last longer than opened food, and won’t get wet if it rains,” he told my brother, pointing out the cereal and levitating it over to them.

The two paid me no mind when I trotted up behind them, listening in just in case we needed to restock between Shanty and wherever we ended up. He was pretty smart about this stuff for a pony that was settled down, and I had a suspicion that he might be more experienced in travelling than I first thought.

“Also, you should smell everything you pick out. If it is really strong, don’t take it. Critters will smell it, and you don’t want a pack of Rottwoods coming down on ya’ while you sleep.” That was something I never thought of, even if I had no idea what a ‘Rottwood’ was.

“What are those?” Felix asked, looking up to the pony with a confused stare.

“Trust me, you’ll know them when ya’ see them,” he offered, waving his hoof dismissively. That wasn’t particularly helpful, but it definitely made me want to avoid whatever the mystery creature was. Something that would be easier if I knew what to look for!

Felix caught me from the corner of his eye and turned with a smile. “Already done?”

“Yeah, she went while we slept,” I told him with a grin.

Strike turned to me and nodded. “Mornin’, Shayle.”

“Good morning.” I didn’t know if it was actually still morning with how much I’d slept, and the constant grey curtain overhead didn’t do much to help with telling the time in the Wasteland, so I just took the pony’s word that it was still in the early hours.

The stallion turned back to Felix. “So, know what you’re gonna buy?” My brother smiled and nodded, looking confident that he could get us all the food we would need. “Great.” Strike turned back to me. “While he does that, you should come with me to get a gun, you’ll need it.”

I nodded and nervously followed the pony across town to a small shack behind the mayor’s house. I'll admit, I was a little scared about carrying a gun around again, mostly because I thought I might lose it and then we'd be defenseless. But aside from that, I was just worried that I still didn't know how to use one, at least not well. I hadn't even thought about it when I took Father's and ran off with it in the middle of the night, I was just so dedicated to protecting me and my brother outside town that I never thought about how much good it would do me. Sure, I knew how to load it and pull the trigger from watching Felix's lessons, but I had still never even used one before.

When we arrived, a single guard was stationed outside the shed, his back laden with a strange contraption that held a shotgun on one side and a long rifle on the other. I stared at the guns curiously for a few seconds while Strike talked with the guard, explaining that I was leaving and needed something to protect myself that wasn't my own hooves.

Hesitantly the guard let us pass, but still followed us into the shed, presumably to keep an eye on me. I could see why once we were inside; the walls of the shack were completely covered in guns and ammo of all kinds. Most were rusted and old, but still looked maintained well enough to shoot, while a few at the far end of the shed looked newer than the box I assumed they came in. Of course my eyes were drawn to these superior weapons, even though I knew my tiny assortment of caps could never hope to put one of those in my hooves. I reluctantly pulled my gaze away from the pristine guns and back to those which might fit in my budget, looking over them to figure out the one I wanted. Unfortunately, none looked like the old revolver I had lost in the sewer, so I wasn't even sure if I knew how to use any of them.

A tall grey stallion sat in the corner looking over an old revolver, almost twice the size of my old one, in his hooves. Much of his coat was missing, along with all but a few hairs from his mane and tail. His cutiemark was among these patches of missing hair, but the backside of a pair of bullets could be seen just at the edge of the missing patch. The buck wore a loose leather vest to cover much of his patchy coat, but it was almost more battered than his own body. He looked over to us with milky eyes, the orbs completely devoid of color.

“Who might be visiting me today?” the old pony asked in a raspy voice, sounding more like rocks on a chalkboard than a pony talking.

“Good to see ya’ again Load,” Strike said soothingly from beside me.

“Oh, Strike my boy! So great to hear you again.” Did he just say ‘hear’ instead of ‘see’? “You don’t come by nearly enough. What, you don’t shoot anymore?”

The horned-pony beside me chuckled and shook his head at the old stallion. “Not nearly as much as I used to.”

“Well, what brings you in here then?” Load asked, standing and walking along the wall, knocking one hoof against the steel molding while he moved across the store.

“A traveler stopped by yesterday, she needs a new gun,” he explained.

“Ah, the zebra girl?”

Um, yes, I’m standing right there. Couldn’t he see that I was a zebra?

“That’s right,” Strike replied, looking over the wall of guns as he spoke.

“So, what’s her strong point?” Strong point?

“She’s fast, but not very patient.” Strike looked at me with a smug smile.

“So no rifles then.” Aw, but the one with the telescope thing on top looked so cool! “And not a revolver either, too long of a reload for your trigger happy tongue.” The buck spoke as if he knew me personally and had seen me shoot. It creeped me out, but at the same time, I was curious about what made him think I was trigger happy. I was not! “How does an SMG sound my striped friend?”

I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded good, I’ll take it. “I would say a pistol Load, she’s not experienced enough for that.” Oh come on!

“Ah, just a little filly.” No, no, no! I huffed and snapped my tail impatiently. Why couldn’t I just choose my own gun? The old stallion chuckled. “You’re right, definitely a pistol for her.” Load ran his nose across the wall, bumping it against each gun until he stopped and lifted one from the pegs holding it up. “Try this one.”

The old pony sat down and held the gun he chose in his hooves for us to see. It was pretty small, barely bigger than my hoof and definitely smaller than the one Strike had leant to me the day before. The metal looked a little worn and had several scars across the slide and grip, but other than that it was clean and free of rust. It couldn’t have held more than seven bullets at a time with how small it was, and those would be small bullets too, but the thing that really caught my eye about it was the strange shape of the barrel. It jutted almost two inches from the body, and was almost as big around as the rest of the gun, with a few small dents in a line down each side.

“Nothing special, but I think it might work well for you little filly.” Load spoke as if magic had chosen the gun for me rather than his nose. “It’s a .22, so don’t plan on killing Hellhounds with it, but it will be perfect for raiders and bandits. Quiet too, for those times you don’t want to be seen.”

He did make the gun sound pretty good, and I didn’t know what a Hellhound was, but the name made me want to avoid them. The assurance that it would drop any bandits or raiders that messed with us was enough for me, and I grinned happily at the gun being held in the old pony’s hooves. “How much?” I asked.

“For you? Fifty caps, and I’ll throw in three magazines of ammo and a hoof holster.” That sounded good to me! It left us with, um…100, take out ten for last night in the clinic was 90, take out 50 was 40. So, 40 caps to buy food, unless we stayed another night. 30 caps to buy food. Yes, I can do simple math, Felix taught me!

I looked up to Strike. “How much will the food cost?”

“Not as much as you’re thinkin’,” he replied with a grin. Oh thank Caesar.

“So young one?” the buck asked again, still holding the gun out to me.

Stop calling me young! “I’ll take it,” I replied happily. Hopefully I wouldn’t lose it this time.

“What do you mean we’re out of caps?” I snapped.

So it turns out the math I did to figure out how many caps we would have was absolutely correct, but left out one little detail; Felix. I found him still looking over food at the shack where we had left him, apparently making sure we got the most we could for the money we had, and took 50 of our caps to buy the gun, ammo, and holster from Load. That was easy, and left him with 40 caps to buy food and pay Doc for one more night in her clinic. Once I had the gun and it was securely attached to my foreleg (plus a lesson from Strike on how to draw it properly and maintain it), I returned to the food shack. Felix wasn’t there anymore, so I made a guess and went to the clinic.

He was there waiting for us, and chatting away happily with Doc, who was giggling like a schoolfilly when I walked in. Of course that should have been a given considering she probably belonged in school, but now I really wanted to know what they talked about while I was gone. I thanked her for letting us stay another night, and to my surprise she asked for the 10 caps for our fee. I thought Felix would have paid that by that point, but I still turned to him with a smile and asked him to pay her.

And that brings us back to “What do you mean we’re out of caps?”

He winced and shrank back a little. “Well…I bought enough food for a week for most of it…and spent the rest on medical supplies from Doc,” the colt explained, sounding a little nervous.

“We don’t have enough to stay here?” I asked him again, as if I had misunderstood his explanation. “Where are we going to sleep?”

“Felix can stay for free if he wants,” Doc purred.

No.

“No,” I stated flatly. I could see Felix frown a little in the corner of my eye. At least now I had an idea what they may have been discussing while I was away. “Unless you have a better plan, I guess we should leave,” I said to the younger zebra. It made sense to me, we had everything we needed, and it was early enough that we could make it a good ways toward…somewhere I still needed to ask Mayor Scroll about.

“But…we just got here,” Felix groaned. “Why can’t we stay a while?”

“Because this isn’t home,” I told him.

“I know, we ran away from there, remember?” he chided. Was he…upset about that?

“Of course I remember,” I said softly, trying to calm him down. “But we need to live with other zebras.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re zebras. You don’t see any other zebras living with ponies, do you?” I asked in an irritated tone, waving out toward the town.

“So, that doesn’t mean we can’t.” The colt had moved closer to me, standing on the tips of his hooves to get as close to my face as he could.

“Felix! This isn’t up for debate,” I shouted. I had almost never done that before, shouting at my own brother, or even ordering him around. When we left I never needed to, he was too tired to argue, and my own urgency made my request sound important. But now, it was different. I don’t know why he was so intent on staying in Shanty, or why he was so mad about us leaving. Maybe he just really liked Doc that much? No, it had only been one day, he was probably just upset because he wasn’t used to travelling. I wasn’t either, but I was still on the high from being free.

My yell is what finally ended the debate, and my little brother huffed before turning and getting his bag. Strike was staring at me like I was some kind of monster and shook his head slowly before turning and leaving without a word. Doc was stuck somewhere between frowning and burning a hole in my head with her glare.

“Sorry, but this is how it is,” I told the little zebra softly, trying to calm him and myself down.

“Well I don’t like how it is,” he grumbled.

I spun to the door and pushed it open for us to leave, stepping into the constant grey light of Shanty in front of Felix. I heard a quick clatter of hooves behind me and turned to see Doc peck on Felix’s cheek just before he got out the door. I glared at the little horned-filly as she pulled away from him; suddenly I was even gladder we were getting out of Shanty. Felix just grinned as his ears turned a soft pink.

“D’awww.” I spun back around to see Charmer staring at the two young 'lovers' with a grin covering most of her face. “You two are so adorable,” she squealed. Once she had her moment of squeeing, the mare looked between me and Felix before her smile faded. “So you two really are heading out huh?”

I guess Strike had already told her what was going on, or word traveled really, really fast in the town. “Yeah, we need to keep moving.”

“Well, thanks for the help with Neishka and the others,” she said plainly. “Really wish ya’ could’ve met the babies.”

A small shiver passed down my spine. “Yeah, maybe someday,” I lied, never planning to set hoof in Shanty again once I was gone, and definitely not in the Nest.

“Well, take care Shayle. You too Felix.” The mare waved to each of us before turning back to her own shack.

So that was it. We talked with Merry Scroll and he told us there was a small Remnant camp a few miles down the road just outside of Shanty. If they couldn’t take us in, he told us the zebras there might know of a place nearby, and if not we should talk to a group called Gold’s Corral. He didn’t tell us much about them, just that they welcomed ponies and zebras into their homes. It sounded like a good backup in case there were no other zebra towns around, but I would rather find a purely zebra place to live. It was probably because it was what I was used to, but for some reason living surrounded by my own kind just made me more comfortable.

Felix didn’t say anything to me, he had been silent since we left Little Doc’s clinic. It was as if we’d never even stopped there, we were right back into the silent travel we’d been through after leaving home the morning before. It was for different reasons of course, but I had no idea what might be going through my little brother’s head. He was probably upset we’d left Doc behind, even if the two of them were definitely too young for that kind of behavior toward each other, but that would fade in time. I regretted yelling at him like I had, but he hadn’t been thinking clearly back there. Strike, Charmer, and Doc may have been civil and friendly to us, but other ponies in the town looked at me as if they expected me to go on a killing rampage at any second. We weren’t welcome there.

I was a little disappointed that we hadn’t bumped into Strike again on our way out of town, I really needed to thank him for all of the help he’d given us while we stayed; on the jobs we were given and with getting supplies to leave. Why I hadn’t thanked him after each job and after buying the gun I would never know, but it niggled at my mind constantly while we walked.

We passed by the trading post not long after leaving town, and I was grateful that we had taken the bandits out the night before as we walked by without being mugged. The corpses of the two ponies that had fallen outside the door were missing completely, leaving behind dried blood and not a single hint to where they may have gone. Maybe Charmer’s snakes had gotten them? No, this was too far for them to travel, and besides, the green pony had just fed them that morning.

After almost an hour of walking, I was starting to think the mayor had lied to us about the camp. It was nowhere to be seen; in fact not much of anything was around. I could see some buildings in the distance, over a line of hills that stretched parallel to the road south of us, but they looked utterly lifeless from where we were. I would have turned us down that way, but I didn’t feel like walking all that way just to find out my suspicions about the towers being nothing but wreckage were right. Instead, I looked to our north. Nope, nothing. The only thing that I could see on the road was what looked like a pile of torn apart chariots a quarter mile further.

It didn’t look like a camp, it looked like a garbage heap left over from the war I’d been told about as a foal. And there were no zebras patrolling around the crash, so it couldn’t have been Remnant. Their soldiers were much more vigilant than that, and they wouldn’t claim a pile of trash to be a camp, right?

Still, I looked at Felix to see if he wanted to check it out. He stared at me and shrugged, obviously not caring what we did. I wished he would just speak up; maybe tell me what he was thinking about or something instead of giving me the cold shoulder.

I looked back to the crash and pushed toward it. If nothing else it might have a few supplies laying around or some caps, just in case we needed them again.

Lucky me! It had neither. Just a lot of bullets, flying at us.

Felix jumped to the side of the road and crouched in a small ditch that had been dug out while I sprinted to the opposite side of the street and pulled the pistol from its place on my leg. I charged toward the crash as fast as I could and was ready for a fight. Whoever was in the pile was at least a little smart, and immediately every gun turned away from Felix and toward the crazy zebra running at them with a gun.

Bullets zipped off of the rocks and dirt around me, whizzed between my legs, and narrowly missed tearing the tip of my other ear off, the one Strike had thankfully missed in favor of punching a hole in my flank.

I could barely see a greasy face sticking out from under one of the chariots holding a rifle very similar to Strike’s. The pony’s mane was held in a row of spikes by what could have been blood, and her bloodshot eyes never blinked as the mare continued to fire at me, reload, and fire again. I took aim as I ran, praying that my attackers’ terrible aim would hold strong. Three shots from my pistol went wide, biting into the wooden cart that the pony was hiding under. Load had been right, the gun was almost completely silent, but running while shooting was harder than I thought.

The spray of bullets continued to kick up the dirt around me, every gun in the wreck insistent on bringing me down before I could get close enough to do anything. This would be a really good time for Strike and Charmer to be around, not only for the extra guns but so that whoever was inside there couldn’t only target me. I really needed to get Felix a gun…why hadn’t I just done another job back in Shanty to afford one more pistol for him? Oh yeah, I’m impatient and bad at plans.

My leg fell out from under me as one of the bullets finally found its way into my skin, tearing a wonderful hole through me just above the holster from Load. My gun clattered to the ground in front of me as my jaw slammed into the dirt, followed by my chest and finally thighs. A sick bout of laughter erupted from the mound of carts as the ponies inside leaped into the street and began dancing their way toward me. They were actually celebrating that they had managed to hit me, all five of them and their horrible aim. Actually, only three of them had guns, the other two were jumping around with a shovel and a mining pick in their mouths.

All of the ponies now dancing their way down the road looked pretty much the same. They each had their manes pulled up or back with dried blood which stained the tops of their heads as well. The two mares in the group wore necklaces made of teeth, and had some pointed bones pierced through their ears and nostrils; the jewelry looked really good with their blood-soaked-leather jackets and skeleton related cutiemarks. They looked like sisters. The stallions lacked the necklaces and piercings, except the one with a row of what looked like ribs stuck under the skin on either side of his chest, but they did each have a dark, reddish brown stain covering most of their bodies.

From the stories I’d been told back home, these were definitely raiders, no doubt about it. Which meant if I didn’t get my gun again, I was going to have a very, VERY bad day.

I lifted myself back to my hooves and limped over to the gun, reaching it just in time to feel the blunt face of the shovel slam into my chest. I had made it much further than I thought during my initial charge, leaving less than 100 feet for the raiders to cover in order to reach me, and prancing psychopaths were faster than a zebra with a bullet in her leg. I fell back to the dirt, surrounded by deranged laughter and whooping calls of victory.

I whipped my tail up, flinging dirt into the eyes of one mare who fell back with a scream, and kicked my back hooves into the legs of another raider, sending them toppling to the ground behind me. The shovel once again swung down into my ribs, knocking the wind from me and halting my fight for a moment. I kicked my legs out again to try knocking over the one with the shovel, but he dodged my blow and brought the handle of his tool down into the bullet hole in my leg.

“She’s a fighter! This will be fuuuuun!” the mare I hadn’t blinded squealed with delight, kicking at me with her hooves as I fought for breath.

That would have been a wonderful time for Felix to arrive with a really heavy book.

Instead, I received a crack and the splitting of Shovel Pony’s head over me. The tool he had been holding fell to the ground beside me, and the other raiders scrambled in fury; even the pony with sand in her eyes managed to scramble with the others. They looked like pissed of bees with nothing to sting at first, but then I realized they were more like moths trying to escape a flyswatter without leaving a lamp’s light. I was the lamp in this situation.

Another head popped open with a crack of gunfire, and the remaining three raiders finally gathered enough common sense to run back to their ramshackle fortress. A few more gunshots echoed out over the street, but none found a mark on the raiders, instead pinging off the ground behind them to keep them moving back to the pile of scrap. Whoever was shooting just corralled the psychos into one, cramped place.

Guess what happened next.

I barely saw the contrail before the piled chariots blew apart in a swirl of smoke and fire, sending shards of wood and metal ornament raining down around me. The resounding boom of the explosion echoed through my ears again and again, leaving behind a continuous ring that refused to leave me in peace. Felix sprinted up to my side, completely ignoring the raining debris as his shaking body huddled in to me. I covered him from the falling scrap as best I could, but the smaller bits still bounced off of his coat.

The debris fell for almost ten seconds before it stopped, leaving a layer of shattered wood and ash in a wide circle around where the chariots once stood. Thank Caesar no body parts were blown anywhere near me or Felix, or anywhere I could see. I could only guess that they were stopped by the mass of chariot over them before they could fly into the air.

I refused to raise my head or any other part of my body from the side of the road, remaining perfectly still as I waited for whoever had killed the raiders to turn on the two cowering zebras. We were an easy target, and I didn’t care. With that kind of firepower, I knew there was no hope in trying to escape, so I didn’t even bother. I wished I had listened to Felix. I wished we had stayed in Shanty with Charmer and Strike and Doc.

“You two, rise.” A deep voice appeared beside us as we curled into each other, neither of us wanting to look up. “In Caesar’s name, I order you to rise.”

Wait, Caesar? I hesitantly lifted my head from Felix, and could have died from happiness as I looked upon the striped coat of the shooter. I nudged Felix lightly, and my brother lifted his head to our savior, grinning warmly.

“Why are you here? This is dangerous territory,” the zebra stallion asked us sternly.

Neither of us answered at first, still shaken from the explosion and the joy of still being alive. Felix recovered first, speaking for the first time since we’d left Shanty. “We were looking for a Remnant camp, but it wasn’t here.”

“You have found us,” the buck replied plainly.

My smile widened at those words. “Thank you,” I said warmly.

“You are welcomed, now rise.”

Felix and I shakily rose to our hooves. I stood on three, keeping the one that had been shot lifted to avoid more pain. Once we were on our hooves, three more zebras shimmered into view behind the first as their magical cloaks deactivated. All of them had a long rifle slung over their backs, each in such pristine condition that they couldn’t have been fired more than twice before just then. One of them also had a long metal tube laying across his withers, the launcher that had turned the raiders’ chariot base into a burning heap of scrap.

“Why do you seek us?” the first of the zebras, presumably the team’s leader, asked.

“We’re looking for a home,” Felix replied, his grin still plastered to his muzzle.

“You are wanderers?” one of the other soldiers, a petite mare, asked softly.

We both nodded. I considered telling them we had run away from home, but that would have opened up a line of explanations I wasn’t ready to make quite yet.

“Why are two so young out here alone? Were they born without a home?” another of the soldiers asked his commander and us. His way of speaking was odd, but then Charmer and Strike had strange accents too.

Neither of us answered. Thankfully, Felix seemed to have my same mindset about telling them we’d run away.

“It seems so, but they know of Caesar,” the leader responded, sounding suspicious. “How have you heard of us?”

“The mayor of a town not far from here told us about you,” Felix offered.

The soldiers looked between one another, each with an unsure look on their faces. One, the mare, stepped forward and whispered to the leader, to which he nodded. The zebra turned back to us, a stern look on his face. “If you seek a home, travel to Caesar’s Stand.” He pointed a hoof toward the towers in the south. Me and Felix both looked at the towers briefly before turning back to the soldiers. “Not the towers, that place is unfriendly for wanderers. The place you seek is nearer to us.”

We both nodded. “Thank you sir,” Felix offered happily, a large grin on his face.

“Again, you are welcomed.”

Each of the zebras disappeared in a shimmer, until only the mare remained. “Take care young ones.” Why does everyone keep calling me that! “Mali intra clades mannis.” As she spoke, the zebra placed a hoof across her chest, bowing slightly.

The old tongue, something I had not heard spoken since I was just a filly. It was not a common thing to hear, even in the zebra village we had grown up in, and was only spoken for sayings, no longer the common tongue. For everyday talk, we spoke the common language; Equestrian. The time zebras had spent in the Wasteland made it so, but the Remnant ensured we did not lose our roots in the villages, including using the words of our ancestors. We may not have been Remnant, but being raised under their care made sure we did not fall away from our glorious origins.

I had long since forgotten the meaning of the phrase that the mare uttered, they were just words after going so long without hearing them, but I could never forget the response or what it meant. “Servent fidem Caesar,” Felix and I replied in unison, each bowing with a hoof across our chests as we were always taught. Keep faith in Caesar.

Once the soldiers had gone, Felix and I sat on the side of the road and took a calming breath, grinning giddily. My luck with fights seemed to hold strong, in that I continued to live through them, even if I did tend to get hurt every time. I didn’t mind it as long as I was still breathing, but I think I’d had enough near-death experiences to last a lifetime in the past few days.

Felix dug into one of his bags and pulled out a rolled bandage along with a brightly colored vial before looking down to my leg. “Why do you get hurt so much?” he joked, unable to be upset with me at that moment. I just shrugged and continued smiling. He took a moment to wipe as much dirt as he could out of the hole in my leg before he unrolled the bandage and lightly began wrapping it around my bloody foreleg. “Drink that.” The colt nodded to the colorful vial while he worked, never taking his eyes off of my leg and sticking out his tongue in focus.

Whatever was in that thing tasted horrible, but the bright side was a soft tingling in my leg that seemed to make it hurt a little less. Tasted bad, felt good, so it was okay in my book.

I was incredibly grateful that Felix had decided to take our spare caps on spend them on medical supplies rather than an extra night at Doc’s. Along with that came a feeling of regret for how I reacted to it at the time, especially since the supplies, and any other medical help, had been focused on me and never him. I was also very glad the colt had gotten medical lessons from the horned-filly, I didn’t even want to think of what might have happened if she hadn’t taught him how to use this stuff or sold it to him. It would probably mean a very painful walk back to Shanty and another visit with the medical pony. Probably best that I don’t mention that part to Felix.

“Too tight?” he asked once his hooves finished their work, looking over the bandage closely for…something, I don’t know, medicine isn’t my field.

“What?” I looked down at him with a cocked eyebrow, not sure what he was asking.

“Is the bandage too tight?”

I wiggled my hoof around and smiled. “No.” I didn’t know why that mattered, but if he had asked about it, then the tightness of the bandage must be important somehow right? I dropped my hoof back to the dirt, and was relieved to feel only a slight pinch where there was once burning pain. “Thanks.”

“No problem, just don’t make it a habit,” the colt told me with a cheeky grin.

I had never seen much in the way of weather back when we still lived at home, it was always just a constant grey cover of clouds that never changed and never went away. It rained once or twice during my foalhood, but it was rare. So of course it had to rain during our walk to Caesar’s Stand, once we had gotten to the hills and had no place to go for protection from the storm.

It was torrential, and I couldn’t see anything more than twenty feet in any direction. I don’t know exactly when it started, there was no warning at all before the downpour swept over us. The heavy water soaked me from head to hoof within a few minutes, and saturated the bandage on my leg until it just fell off. Felix frowned and tried to put it back on for me, but it had quickly become a long strip of muddy cloth. Luckily, we had reached the point where we couldn’t get any wetter, so we didn’t mind continuing on in the storm.

I didn’t think that anyone would try to attack us in the rain, it would be impossible to see us coming until we were right on top of any would be attackers, and nobody would actually want to be outside during this if they could avoid it. Still, I was ready to draw the pistol from my leg holster if I had to (yes, I remembered to pick it up).

I kept my head low, for some reason thinking it might keep some of the rain out of my face, and looked for anywhere the two of us could get some shelter and try to warm up a little. But with the minimal visibility, I wasn’t holding my breath for a shack or cave. I don’t think I would go in a cave though, underground was bad for me. Felix trotted close beside me, practically leaning against me to make sure we weren’t separated in the storm. My mane had long since become plastered to the side of my face, providing me with a constant itchy feeling as the hairs tangled with my coat.

Even Felix’s usually stuck up mane slicked down against his neck, once he pushed it back from his face that is. It originally covered his eyes and gave me a bit of a laugh, but he ruined it by slicking it back with a hoof.

Once we finally got over the top of the hills and started down the other side, a blast of sound all around us sent me to my belly, and I flung my hooves over my head to protect myself from the incoming falling debris. When did the Remnant soldiers start following us? And when did they gain the ability to see through the rain enough that they could blow up more raiders with that tube launcher thing? That list of unanswered questions in my head was starting to get unruly.

Instead of falling debris, all I got was a bout of laughter from Felix as he nudged me with a hoof. “What are you doing Sis?”

I moved my hooves and looked up at him. What did he think I was doing? I was hiding from the rockets! “Did you not hear that explosion?” I asked frantically.

He laughed even harder. “When did you get scared of thunder?”

Thunder…right…what was that again? The word sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite remember what it was. I shakily rose to my hooves, looking around for fire or smoke. “Are you sure it wasn’t an explosion?”

“Yes I’m su-”

BOOOOM

And my belly hit the mud once again. That one was definitely an explosion! Or not, Felix was laughing even harder this time. How could he laugh at that? I didn’t think he knew what an explosion sounded like; did he miss that one back on the road? I’m pretty sure stuff was exploding around us.

I glared up at the laughing colt from between my hooves, growling softly as he continued to mock my completely logical reaction to exploding things. “Why is this funny?”

“Because I never knew you were scared of thunder,” he said once his laughter died down. It isn’t thunder, those are explosions! I just continued glaring at him from the mud, not sure if I should bother getting up.

A flash of light surrounded us, and moments later another explosion echoed through the rain. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to sink lower into the mud. Why was Felix still laughing! “Come on Shayle, it’s just the storm.”

I moved my hooves again and looked up at him, not believing it. “H-how does a s-storm make t-that noise?” I stammered. What? Things were exploding around me! I was allowed to be worried, and maybe a little scared.

Felix opened his mouth to explain, but closed it again and looked down at me. “It just does,” he said with a grin. Either it was something he didn’t want me to know, or he didn’t want to confuse me with some long, hard to understand explanation. And ‘it just does’ was a perfectly fine explanation for me.

A softer boom rumbled around us, not nearly as sc-startling as the other explosions, thunder, whatever, but still startling. I just lay in the mud looking up at Felix as he waited for me to get up, but I couldn’t do it. I thought about getting my hooves under me once or twice, but I knew that as soon as I was up another boom would send me back into the mud.

My brother sighed, and curled into me in the mud. “You baby,” he said softly, stifling a chuckle as he tried to calm me down. I’m not a baby! I’m the big sister, I just didn’t want to get us blown up, or whatever ‘thunder’ could do to a zebra. It had to be bad with a sound like that.

I had never really gotten a close look at Felix’s glyph before that point. He had shown me back when it first appeared, actually only a year earlier, but he couldn’t tell me what had gotten it for him. A lot of things happened that day according to him, and he didn’t notice it until he was crawling into bed for the night. It was much better than mine, and looked good on him; a ring of triangles around a single small dot, arranged with their points out. I didn’t know what it meant, but it was better than a stupid cracked swirl.

Felix nuzzled me soothingly for a while, I don’t know exactly how long, until the thunder had stopped pounding all around us, and had somehow moved to the north. I could still hear it echoing behind us, but at least it wasn’t on us anymore, and it was going further away. I shakily got to my hooves and looked around. If only the rain had gone away too, that would be great. But no, it still hammered down on us as we resumed our walk south. Felix still giggled whenever I shivered at the sound of distant thunder, but at least I wasn’t hiding in the mud anymore, which was probably the smart thing to do just in case it came back.

After another hour or so of walking through the downpour that still refused to let up, a gunshot cracked through the air and kicked up the mud in front of us. Oh come on!

“You there, identify yourselves!” a feminine voice called out from ahead of us. I couldn’t see the one speaking, and couldn’t even imagine how they saw me, but at least they were talking instead of just gunning us down. So why did they shoot in the first place?

I looked down to Felix for a moment before looking back up to where the voice came from. “We’re travelers,” I yelled into the rain. “Do you have any shelter?” Please have somewhere we could warm up, preferably without having to pay up front.

The sound of groaning metal broke through the curtain of rain in front of us, and a few moments later we could vaguely hear hoofs splatting through the mud toward us until the speaker materialized through the rain. I really liked her coat! It was a long brown cloth covering all of her body including a pair of sleeves on the front to cover her front legs and was drawn closed at the front with small clasps to keep her chest dry. A large hood kept her mane and face protected from the rain, as well as making the mare look rather mysterious. All I could see was the tip of her nose and a chord of her mane hanging out on one side of her muzzle. A short rifle was hanging from a thick band across her chest, keeping the bite grip within easy reach for a quick shot.

“What brings you here?” she asked us, sounding more welcoming than she had before coming out to see us.

“We’re looking for Caesar’s Stand,” Felix explained quickly.

“I could have guessed that,” she sniggered. “I mean why?”

“We heard it could be a good place to settle down,” I replied.

She remained silent for a moment, staring at us from under her hood. “Who told you that?” She sounded almost disappointed with our explanation.

“A group of soldiers on the road.” I waved back the way we had come, starting to get nervous about why the mare hadn’t confirmed that Caesar’s Stand was a nice place.

“Xion and his group?” the mare chuckled briefly. “Lying bastards.”

“So…it’s not a good place?” Felix asked, shuffling a little closer to me.

“It’s safe and it’s home,” the mare replied simply. “Come on in.” She turned back into the torrent and began walking.

I quickly followed her, and Felix stayed right beside me as we approached a massive iron gate. It was opened from the top, pulled up by two large winches that held the door with cables thicker than my leg. Once we were inside, a loud rumble pulled my eyes up to the winches, which began spinning to lower the door back into place behind us. A thick cloud of black smoke churned out of a large generator mounted on one side of the gate, powering the winches, barely.

The area just after the gate was covered with a large tarp, keeping the ground as dry as it could, but still allowing leaks in where there were holes or gaps in the fabric. The mare who led us in pulled back her hood and shook her mane out. It was a little strange to see that her hair was pulled into clumps of each color, alternating between the white and black of her stripes and held in place by a row of yellow beads at the end of each lock of hair. The mare turned to us, her yellow eyes matched the beads nicely.

“Welcome to Caesar’s Stand travelers.” The zebra lifted a hoof to us with a smile. “Seer.”

“I lifted my own hoof to shake with hers, grinning and happy to be out of the rain. “Shayle. This is Felix,” I said with a nod to my brother, who shook Seer’s hoof after me.

“Sorry about the gunshot, I wasn’t expecting anyone to find us in this storm.” The zebra gestured to the sky, just in case we had forgotten about the soaking air all around us.

Honestly, I was more interested in how she even saw us. “Not a problem,” I waved it off. “At least you didn’t hit us.”

Seer chuckled. “So, you need a place to stay?” she asked warmly. We both nodded to her. “Then you should talk with the Praetor, she’ll know more about that than I do.”

“Where do we find him?” Felix asked, looking out into the rain-soaked town behind the mare.

“She will probably be in the town square. She likes spend time there with her foal.” Seer pointed the direction we should go. “Don’t worry, you can’t miss it.” We both nodded and shook hooves with Seer again, smiling brightly. “Come find me later tonight, you two look like you could use a drink.”

“Eh, sure,” I replied hesitantly. Seer looked at me strange for a moment, then turned and trotted toward a stairwell leading to the top of the gate.

The two of us walked out into the rain once again, but this time inside Caesar’s Stand. It was a very impressive city, especially compared to Shanty. There were rows upon rows of concrete buildings, shacks and tents, the largest of which were all together on one side of the rectangular city, and descending in size as we looked across, ending with rows of tents on the furthest side from us. Streets ran between each row of buildings and shacks, keeping a very orderly appearance and never breaking formation. As we walked, we could see that the side with the largest buildings was actually the barracks for any Remnant soldiers who stayed in the town. I had a feeling it wasn’t a permanent location for most of them, more of a place to rest overnight while they moved between missions, but there were still plenty of them roaming between the buildings in parkas and cloaks.

When we reached the middle portion of the city, it broke any semblance of the order that consumed the part we had just trotted through. The ground was cleared out around a large, seemingly non-functional fountain at the center. Shacks circled the very outside of this park, little shops that, at the moment, were closed to due to the rain.

The park was empty during the storm, with the exception of a very young foal splashing about in the puddles while an older zebra crouched nearby. Neither of them wore any sort of clothing to protect them from the rain, but the foal didn’t seem to care as he bounced between the puddles and constantly giggled.

As we approached, the older zebra sat down and spoke to us while she watched her son bound through the rain. “It has been too long since the last rain. I feared he may never get to experience the joy of it as only the young can.” She looked over to us, a small smile across her lips. “You are new, but I don’t think you are soldiers. Did you find yourself lost?”

How do you find yourself lost? “No, we were told of this place by a group of soldiers to the north,” Felix explained.

“Ah, so you were lost.” No, we just didn’t know where we were going. “Tell me, are you looking for a home, or do you seek rest before you continue being lost?” she asked with a little smile.

The colt splashed a puddle right beside us, spraying the three of us with muddy water before giggling and bounding into the next puddle in his path. I deadpanned, Felix grinned, and the Praetor chuckled along with her son. “I apologize for his youth, but the falling water always brings them such joy.”

Why were we meeting so many zebras and ponies that talked weird? I never heard any strange accents or talking like that back home…not that I ever got to talk with many zebras back home. “We’re looking for a home, if you have one to spare,” I told the old zebra politely.

“I always have a home open for those who need it,” she replied calmly, never taking her eyes from her son. “All I ask is that you do your part here, and the home will be provided.”

“Our part?” Felix asked, looking up at the Praetor in confusion.

“We do not require money for homes here, so long as each member of our city does their duty. The soldiers protect Caesar and our way of life, the guards defend us from attack and crime, the traders hunt and gather food for us. Everyone does their part. We still all receive pay of course, one cannot feed their family without it, but why force one of our own to buy a home when they already do their part for us? Paying you just to receive the money again for your home is pointless.” That… was a long explanation. She could have just told us what she wanted, but I guess it was nice to know how things ran in Caesar’s Stand.

“What would you have us do?” I asked her, hoping it wouldn’t be related to killing mutant snakes.

The old zebra mumbled to herself for a few seconds, watching her son jump through the rain while she thought. Her lips curled into a smile, and she nodded to herself. “A high ranking soldier came here a week ago, he has a big project. He needs supplies; machines, technical devices; so many things I could never guess their use.” She looked over at us for a moment. “He told me several places to find these supplies. If you go out and get them, I will allow you to stay here until I think of a more permanent position for you.”

We both grinned. Gathering machines sounded really easy! I could do that. But…wait…that would require knowing what they looked like right? “Um, Praetor?” I asked softly. “Do you have someone in your city who could help us know what the supplies are?”

“Or someone to show us where they are?” Felix added.

The mare looked back to her son. “You are not from these parts…” she sounded a little disappointed, but quickly thought of something. “I will send someone to meet you at the gate before you leave tomorrow, they will have the list I was given.”

“Thank you Praetor,” I replied with a grin.

The mare rose from the mud, whistling softly. “That’s enough fun in the rain for now.” The young colt quickly changed direction and bounced back to his mother, grinning as he finally came to a stop beside us.

The Praetor looked back to us. “Your new home will be Shack 13, you can find it in the third row.” She pointed back to the buildings we had already passed, smiling warmly. “Rest well young ones.” Seriously, how old does everyone think I am? I know Felix is still young, but I’m a grown mare!

We both nodded and began our walk to our new home, grinning giddily and barely restraining ourselves from bouncing along like the colt in the puddles.

Footnote: Level Up! (Speech 15, Unarmed 30)

Companion (Felix): (Medicine 25) New Perk! [Comprehension] - You gain one additional skill point for reading books, and double the skill points for reading magazines! And I guess you can try to explain it to Shayle too.

Author’s Note: Another huge thanks to Kkat for the creation of Fallout Equestria and its wonderful world, to Somber for expanding it with Project Horizons, and to every other side-fic writer out there who keeps this universe changing and living on for all of us to enjoy. Another thank you to the PH RP group for getting my butt writing on this, and a huge thanks to my pre-readers for making sure I don’t mess up too much.