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Fallout Equestria: Sweet Nothings

by Golden Tassel

Chapters

Chapter 1: Life Anew

Only after we've lost everything are we free to do anything.

The starting point. As good as any might ever be...

I was alone in the dark. In a cold, rocky tunnel leading away from the stable with nowhere to go but forward toward the dim light at the other end.

"It’s a puzzle, like any other,” I said aloud, trying to convince myself, "I just have to see what shapes the pieces are and I can get started. That’s all.”

The ground was uneven but I had an easy enough time going up it. As I began moving towards the light a bit faster, though, I heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone. I looked back and saw that I'd managed to catch my hind hoof in the ribcage of a skeleton. Staggering around while trying to shake it off, I lost my footing and fell flat, coming face-to-face with a unicorn skull missing a big chunk out of one side.

Underneath the skull, a metallic glint caught my eye. I gently nudged the skull aside with my hoof to reveal a gun. A magnum revolver, as I’d later learn. I looked at it hesitantly, having been told enough about the tools of war to be afraid of hurting myself.

I picked it up carefully in my hooves and inspected it. It seemed simple enough to use--bite the grip, point at what you want to shoot, and... fire? I tucked the gun into one of the foreleg pockets on my utility barding where I could easily reach it and got back on my hooves to continue up the tunnel to the exit.

I took my first steps out of the cave and was momentarily blinded while my eyes readjusted to the light. When they did I felt my heart sink. My hind legs gave out and I just sat there, mouth agape, staring out across a desolate, barren landscape that went on further than I ever imagined. I looked up and saw what I assumed had to be clouds high above me. They covered the entire sky, letting through only a diffuse and muted light. I knew from the clock on my PipBuck that it was barely just past noon but the cloud cover made it darker than normal lighting levels inside the stable.

There was a tingling in my sides and my wings quivered with an instinctive need, spreading out all on their own. They beat softly a few times and kicked up a small cloud of dust around me. I knew what they wanted but at the same time my heart sank further down into the pit of my stomach. I wanted to break down and cry like a frightened little foal.

I can't cry.

Part of me wanted to take off right then, climb into the clouds and just go from there but something else inside me was afraid. The stable was spacious, built with plenty of room for pegasi to casually fly down a hallway or even up and down levels through the central shaft of the atrium, which ran nearly the whole height of the stable from maintenance at the bottom to Administration at the top. I’d been all over the stable but never in my life had I ever imagined I could go higher than Administration.

So much open space made it seem like I could go in any direction and never get anywhere. In the stable, every corridor went somewhere. All that sky above me, it just went on forever. How would I ever know when I was where I needed to be? No, I needed to stay on the ground. The ground had structure to it. I could find my way along the ground.

I took a deep breath and returned my gaze to the horizon then glanced down at my PipBuck. I clicked through a few options and brought up the Eyes Forward Sparkle--a useful little spell contained within the PipBuck that, among other things, gave me a compass. The PipBuck's inventory spell had also apparently taken note of the gun I’d picked up, displaying information about it on my E.F.S. like its condition and how much ammunition I had for it. I looked around slowly, paying attention to the compass--no bars. That meant there shouldn’t be anypony else nearby.

The muted light under the cloud cover and the rocky, uneven terrain limited how far I could see. I could make out a road leading off to the east and winding through some craggy hills. It didn't look as comforting as a stable corridor would have but at least roads went somewhere, unlike that endless gray sky. I figured that if I followed the road far enough, I would find something--some sign or remnant of civilization, maybe even somepony who could help me.

A rocky, craggy path wound its way along the side of the mountain I'd emerged out of and lead down to the dusty, barren ground below. It would have been a slow trek to make it down on hoof but fortunately I had another way down. I stretched my wings, flapped a few times to get a feel for the air, and then carried myself almost effortlessly downwards. Even if the air was oppressively humid and full of dust that scratched at my throat, it made my heart race to fly like that for the first time in open air.

I stayed low, only a few yards over the ground, and didn’t push myself. I had remembered reading somewhere--I forget where exactly, The Egghead’s Guide to Running perhaps--that pacing yourself will allow even an inexperienced pony to cover long distances without succumbing to exhaustion. I didn’t know how far I'd have to follow the road to find something or even if there’d be anything worthwhile waiting for me when I got there. This was one puzzle I'd have to piece together face-down, apparently.

The journey was deathly quiet. I kept scanning around me, pausing to hover in the air while looking back any time I thought I heard something. Still, nothing appeared on my E.F.S. and after I lost sight of the stable, looking back only made me feel progressively more lost and alone. The excitement of flying in open air had passed quickly and I found myself following the road closely, not straying off it as though I could imagine walls and a ceiling around me to keep me safe.

It didn't make me feel any better.

It was about the time my wings were starting to get tired and I was considering stopping for a rest that I saw a collection of structures ahead on the road. The sight was encouraging and I hurried along towards it despite the burning complaints of my wing muscles.

I had arrived in what I could only assume was a settlement of some kind. The buildings looked like they’d been cobbled together (very poorly, I have to say) out of whatever pieces of salvage could be found. They were scattered around with seemingly no real plan aside from keeping a clear path through the town where the old, cracked, and pothole-ridden road I followed there had lain for the last two centuries.

Strangely, I couldn't see anypony around. The place seemed deserted. I was starting to worry that everypony in the outside world was dead already--that I was doomed to wander aimlessly until I simply died of exposure or hunger or thirst or I don't know what. Before I could lose all hope, though, one building caught my eye.

I landed and folded my wings, letting them rest while I walked the rest of the way into the settlement. My E.F.S. still wasn’t showing any bars but I could see light coming from the windows of the only building that didn’t look like it’d been built out of scrap, or at least not entirely. It was a long structure with large picture windows along the front, though most were broken and boarded up, looking like it must have been built before the war and had somehow stood the test of time. The back half (which included a second floor) appeared to have been built much more recently but with skill and planning put into its construction unlike the rest of the town. It actually looked like it wouldn’t collapse on top of me the minute I stepped inside.

Above the front section of the building was a large neon sign, cracked and broken. The dark letters read "Mum’s Diner.” I approached the door and stepped inside.

The interior of Mum’s Diner was spacious. There were tables spread out around the room and a bar at the far end. There was an open doorway behind the bar and a closed door against the back wall. As I entered, I noticed a brown earth pony with a dirty yellow mane was slumped over a table in the left corner, sleeping. I then noticed that my E.F.S. was now showing two bars; one that lined up with the sleeping pony and one that was apparently behind the back wall.

As I walked up to the bar a unicorn stuck her head out from behind the open doorway. She was a vibrant shade of green with a blue and white mane styled in curly ribbons that bounced as she moved. Her expression was at first plain, the kind I’d seen all around the stable on a daily basis--the kind of expression that comes from doing the same thing every day for years on end. When she saw me, however, her eyes lit up and she flashed a wide, exuberant smile, eagerly trotting out to meet me.

"Well hello there, sugar,” she said in a warm tone. "Have a seat anywhere just not-”

I was already lifting myself onto one of the bar stools as she was welcoming me when the stool cracked. Next thing I knew, I was flat on my back and gasping for breath, the wind knocked out of me.

"Just not there...” she finished as she leaned over the counter, looking down at me in concern. "Sorry, I’ve been meaning to get that one fixed for ages. We don’t get many newcomers around here though, so everypony just knows not to sit there.” She smiled apologetically while her horn shimmered and she helped pull me back to my hooves with her chartreuse magical aura.

I had apparently managed to pick the one broken seat in the entire place. "Just my luck,” I wheezed, climbing into another stool as I got my breath back.

"Welcome to Mum’s Diner. If you’re looking for food, trade, a place to sleep, or just about anything else...” She paused, her smile drawing into a wry grin. "You’ve come to the right place.”

"So you’re Mum then?” I asked, a bit sheepishly. I wasn’t really quite sure what I was doing there. I just needed get a feel for my surroundings, find a place to start from--a corner piece to anchor the puzzle on.

Her expression turned sour but she spoke as cheerfully as ever, "Honey, if you wanna keep those pretty little wings of yours, you won’t call me that again. I’m Chrysanthemum. Chrys if you want to keep it short. How about you?”

"Oh.” I flushed a little but her expression softened and put me at ease. "I’m uh, Day.”

She looked at me skeptically, "Sunny Day? Rainy Day? Daylight?”

"Just Day if you don’t mind, Chrys.”

"Just Day it is then,” she said, "So what can I do for you?”

"Um. I don’t really know, to be honest. I’m kinda lost out here,” I admitted.

"Mmhm. I figured as much,” she said, "The clean stable barding is a dead giveaway. What are you, fresh out of the stable today?”

I nodded, suddenly feeling very aware of how out of place I must have looked. "Wait. Are you saying you've met other ponies like me? From a stable?"

"Not personally, no," she said, "But everypony hears stories every so often about a stable pony wandering out into the wastes and getting herself killed trying to save the wasteland. Don't try to be a hero, honey. It's hard enough just trying to feed yourself out here. It's a good thing you didn’t happen across any raiders or slavers.” Chrys paused, her eyes looking up and off to the side. "Or gangers, or hellhounds, or rangers, or mutants,” she took a breath, "or any number of other things out there that’ll kill you--or worse--just as soon as look at you.” She looked back at me with that same cheerful smile and I nearly fell out of my seat again.

Celestia above, I thought, it really is that bad out there. I didn’t have a clue what half the things she listed off were but she sure made it sound like I actually should have died just by stepping outside the stable.

Chrys must have seen the look on my face because she frowned and turned away from me to duck under the counter. She returned promptly, carrying a glass bottle in her magic. She levitated it over and set it in front of me. "Tell you what, hon, this one’s on the house. It looks like you need it.”

The faded label on the bottle named it as Sparkle-Cola. Deciding I might as well give it a try, I grabbed the bottle between my hooves and bit on the metal cap. It came off with a sharp pshht sound and I let it clatter onto the countertop as I took a sip. It was warm, fizzy, and had a pleasant carroty flavor to it. "Thanks,” I said, setting it back down on the counter.

"Don’t mention it. I ain’t running a charity though. If you want more you’ll have to pay like anypony else.”

And suddenly I realized I was missing a pretty big piece of the puzzle. "Pay? Like, with money?” It was a stupid question but I just hadn’t even thought about that. I knew what money was from what they taught us about Old Equestria but in the stable everything was either rationed or labeled as communally available.

Chrysanthemum nodded and nudged the bottle cap I’d dropped on the counter over to me with her hoof. "We use caps in the wasteland. You can hang on to this one but you’re gonna want to find a lot more than that if you expect to survive out here. Not everypony is as willing as I am to consider alternative forms of payment,” she said with a wink. I wasn’t quite sure I understood her correctly but I felt a warm flush across my cheeks anyway.

"Probably the easiest way to get some caps is to go scavenging. It’s what most of the folks around here do to get by on,” Chrys said. I supposed that explained why I didn’t see anypony else on my way to the diner. "It’s not exactly safe though,” she continued. "Depends mostly on where you go and who you’re with.” She looked at me and tilted her head to one side, pursing her lips. "If you head south from here a couple miles you’ll find some ruins. There’s an office building still standing... mostly. It should be a safe enough place for you to start. Bring back anything interesting you can find and we’ll trade.”

I continued sipping on my Sparkle-Cola as I listened. My E.F.S. flashed a notice: Map marker added: ruined office building. Apparently PipBucks do a lot more than I thought they did.

Chrys looked down and jutted her chin at me. "You know how to use that?”

"Hmm?” I looked down and remembered the gun I’d picked up. "Oh. Sure. Nothing to it, right?”

I could tell from the disapproving look on her face that she believed that about as much as I did. Without warning she grabbed the gun in her telekinesis and pulled it right out of my pocket. Before I could protest she’d flicked a lever, the cylinder swung out and all six rounds fell out onto the table. Well, five rounds and one empty casing. She closed the cylinder again and set the gun down on the counter in front of me. "Reload it.”

I sat there, somewhat dumbstruck by what had just happened. If she’d wanted to, Chrys could have turned the gun on me before I’d even seen it coming. Thankful she hadn’t, I then realized that she was teaching me a valuable lesson and I should pay close attention. Picking the gun up in my hoof, I flicked the release lever. I held the gun against the counter, propped up in my hoof, while I picked up one of the bullets in my teeth and set it into the cylinder. I looked up and realized Chrys wasn’t there anymore. I looked left then right and nearly fell out of my seat (again) when I saw her standing over my shoulder, levitating a Sparkle-Cola bottle aimed at my head.

"Too slow, honey.” Chrys moved back around behind the counter and put the cola away. Her horn continued to glow as she levitated out a box of ammunition and a disk about the same diameter as the revolver’s cylinder with her chartreuse aura, setting both on the counter. "Revolvers are really only practical for unicorns,” she said as she levitated the disk over the loose rounds on the table and I watched as it picked them all up in a ring, neatly aligned to fit back into the cylinder. Chrys pulled the empty casing away with her telekinesis then dropped the rest into the revolver and set the disk down on the table in front of me. "It’s a speedloader. Enchanted to pick up bullets so non-unicorns can actually have a hope of using a revolver.”

I reached out for it and she pulled it back across the counter. "Ten caps.”

I blinked at her. "You know I don’t have ten caps.”

"Okay, five. But only because you’re pretty.”

"You know exactly how many caps I have,” I told her, starting to feel like I was being made fun of but blushing nonetheless.

"I know you have more than caps on you. The question is, honey, how much are you willing to part with?”

I bit my lip. "All I have is my PipBuck and my barding. I don’t know if you know anything about PipBucks but unless you’re ready to cut my leg off, it’s not coming off and my barding is all I have to carry things with so the gun and the speedloader would both be more hassle than it’s worth. I’ll just have to do without the speedloader.”

Chrys just looked at me with that devilish smile of hers. "There’s other things you’ve got to barter with.” She leaned over the counter towards me. "I’m sure you have plenty to offer,” she said with a wink.

I leaned away from her as she said that. I was blushing again and stammered, "I-I don’t- Th-that is, I’m- I’m not-”

"Into mares?” she finished with a giggle.

"I- no! That’s not what-”

"Alright,” she said with a grin, "I know when I’m beat. No sense trading your canteen for water. Two caps.”

I was still flustered from her last proposition but leaned forward again since at least she wasn’t directly in my face anymore. I looked down at the counter. The speedloader sitting there between us, the one single cap I had to my name resting on my side of the counter. I pushed the speedloader back to her side. "I’m sorry, all I have is one cap.”

Chrys pushed it back to the middle. "Two caps.”

I looked at her, wondering Can’t she count? "You know I can’t do better than one cap,” I said flatly, pushing it back.

"Two caps.”

"One cap’s all I have!”

"Five caps."

"Wait a second, what happened to two caps?"

"Prices change all the time, try to keep up, darling."

"So what? I still only have one cap!" I yelled in frustration.

"Okay fine, two caps."

"Are you listening? I only have one cap!"

"Well the price is two caps."

"All I've got is one cap!"

"One cap!”

"I’m telling you it’s two caps or nothing!”

"One cap is my final offer!”

"Fine! One cap it is!” I slid the cap across the counter and took the speedloader in my teeth. I was about to drop it in my pocket when it struck me that something quite wrong had just happened.

I looked up at Chrys and she was just grinning at me. "Of course, that speedloader won’t do you much good if you don’t have any more ammo to use it with. You drive a hard bargain but I’m sure we can reach some kind of agreement.”

I gave a dry laugh, easing myself off the seat. I finished off the last of my cola in one quick gulp, tucked my revolver back into my pocket, and started backing towards the front door. "Heh, well I guess I’ll just have to hope to find some more ammo while scavenging then. Uhm. It’s ah... been real nice meeting you, Chrys. I’ll just be going now and I’ll be back with whatever scraps I can find out there. Thanks again!”

Chrys was still smiling as she waved from behind the counter. "Caps, scraps, or ass, honey!” she called out to me as I ducked out the door.

Chrysanthemum was strange but she'd been pleasant at least. And helpful in giving me a direction to go in. My PipBuck had tagged the location Chrys told me to try scavenging in and it showed up as a marker on my E.F.S. compass. With a deep breath, I flapped my wings and took off again in that direction to go find... whatever it was that would help me start my new life out here in the wastes.

I realized almost right away that there was no road between the diner and the ruins. I had the marker on my PipBuck so I wasn't worried about getting lost, it was just that the idea of traveling without even the token boundaries I could imagine around a road... It scared me a little. It was slowly getting darker outside, though, and I shuddered to think what traveling in the dark would be like.

I took flight and headed south toward the ruins. What else could I do?

Despite the pit in my stomach, the flight to the ruins was eerily calm. Much the same way the trip to the diner had been. It gave me the strangest feeling as though the wasteland itself was just... waiting. Waiting for what, I couldn't really say. Knowing my luck, the wasteland had been setting me up for a spectacular failure from the moment I left the stable. That was just silly, of course, but it still made my feathers bristle.

I didn't have to travel far before I came into the outskirts of the ruined city. Everywhere I looked there were collapsed buildings and blasted rubble. As soon as I saw a road I raced off towards it and dropped in for a landing, taking a deep breath and sighing in relief.

The road under my hooves was in even worse shape than the one by Mum's Diner. Long, jagged cracks tore up the asphalt into some wicked parody of a jigsaw puzzle. In some places whole sections were missing, swallowed by sinkholes and gaping fissures. Rubble that had crumbled down from the collapsed buildings scattered across the road. From the look of what remained, these buildings had once reached as high as Administration; some had risen even higher than that.

I could almost see the city as it once was, pristine and full of majesty. It was an easy puzzle to piece together, especially with so much of the city's skeleton exposed like it was. I-beams and rebar, warped and sheared, stuck out from the collapsed ruins at odd angles but I could see how it had all once fit together. I had to marvel at the old world construction. It was a beautiful feat of engineering.

I suppose it was probably too much to ask of the wasteland to let me simply stroll through a ruined city while imagining it as a living, thriving community. My reverie was broken when I heard a, sadly familiar, crunch under my hoof. I looked down and lifted my hoof to see I'd stepped onto a few fragments of bone that looked as if they belonged to a skull but the rest of the skeleton was missing. I looked up along the single standing wall of the collapsed building I was next to and saw a dark, rusty brown smear stained into the concrete around the edge of a second floor window.

Cautiously, I flew up to the window. A long-dead skeleton had already provided me with a gun; I supposed that if looting the old world remains was how ponies made a living in the world outside, I shouldn't pass up an opportunity. Looking inside, I saw the barely-intact corner of a room. There was just enough floor left for a single pony to stand on. Everything else had collapsed into the pile of rubble beyond the crumbled wall.

A skeleton lay slumped against the inside of the window; most of the skull was simply gone. I slipped in through the window and flapped, hovering above the remains as I looked around for anything helpful but it looked like all there was left was just a saddlebag in the corner. I took a closer look at it: one side was a typical canvas bag, though the buckle on the strap was broken and some of the seams looked frayed but it was still mostly intact. The other side of the saddlebag was a metal box, scratched and dented, but likewise whole. The paint was faded but I could make out the distinct pattern of a butterfly.

The box was locked. Shaking it gently suggested that there were at least a few things inside it and, recognizing the faded design on the front, I knew they were likely medical supplies. They'd surely be useful sooner or later so I'd have to find a way to pry it open or force the lock. I decided I could worry about that later, though, and moved on to check inside the bag. It contained only a journal.

I took it out and began looking through it. Many of the pages were faded or torn and unreadable. As I got further into it though, I started making out what looked like diagrams of sections of the ruined city with angles sketched in various places and notes in the margins about things like elevation and wind speed and bullet drop. In between the sketches were some scattered entries:

-sniper skulking about. Killed Tumbleweed and Trigger Happy soon as we got close to the building. He gave away his position with that shot though. I paid him back in kind.

~~~

-he's good. Musta been a decoy I shot before. Nearly took my horn off after I stood up. Had to sneak back into cover. Has to be a pegasus the way he moves to a new firing position so quickly. Fucking turkeys. Well I won't go down so easy. If I only had-

~~~

All day I've been crawling around on my belly. Once it got dark I thought I might be able to lose him but it's like he knows exactly where to expect me. I can't even use my magic to write with or he spots the glow and starts taking pot shots at me. I can feel his scope burning into the back of my neck. If I could just manage to get a position to sight him from, Ol' Painless would give him a taste of his own medicine.

~~~

Two days. He's had me pinned for two fucking days. I'm out of rations. He's toying with me now. Shot my lockbox key right out of my magic while I was completely in cover. Heard a dozen ricochets before it hit the key. There's luck and there's just plain cheating.

~~~

I give up. He knows where I am. He always knows. Fuck this city. Fuck the turkey. Fuck the salvage. I just want to go home. He won't let me though. There's only one way out of this shithole.

The next page was in a noticeably different script:

His legs wobble like jelly, threatening to shatter from fatigue. Time, wind, and rain gnaw at his flesh, working to strip away whatever remains of the life that once burned inside him.

His brothers already lie in jumbled, gruesome heaps. But still, he hangs on.

It's not pride that holds him upright -- there is no beauty left in him; age and hardship have withered his elegant features down to bone. He stands all alone, swaying meekly in the wind, because he must.

He feels the ground below him beckoning, pleading to him to lay down and rest his tired bones, but he still has the strength left to say no. When his creators brought him into the world, they blessed every beam, fibre, and pane of him with the same, all-important purpose: To stand.

And so, through time, pain, and sorrow, he holds his head aloft.

-Janus

I looked up from the journal at the skeleton, its skull mostly gone, the bones bleached. It had lain there for decades. Beyond the headless skeleton, out the window and across a sea of rubble, was the ruined office building Chrys had directed me to. It stood before me as the only structure I'd encountered so far in the city that hadn't collapsed in on itself yet. Though I had to guess it would crumble like the rest sometime soon, judging by the spreading cracks around the foundation. They weren't too bad yet, though. Barring an earthquake or an explosion near a support column or load-bearing wall, I didn't think there was any immediate danger of collapse.

I tucked the journal back into the saddlebag and pulled in on across my back. With one last, mournful look at the skeleton, I slipped out through the window and glided back down to the road. I scanned along the rooftops cautiously, my feathers bristling. The sniper had to be long dead by now but I still felt nervous being out in the open like that so I made a hurried gallop to the office building. My E.F.S. flashed a notice confirming that I'd discovered the location.

The front doors had been made of glass, shattered ages ago, but the entrance was blocked from the inside. It looked like the floor above it had fallen in, dumping a pile of desks and filing cabinets along with assorted other debris to bar the way in. I took few steps back and looked up; the window on the floor above was broken, leaving an opening conveniently large enough for a pony to fit through. I flew up to it and slipped inside, hovering above the floor and taking a careful look around.

It seemed like that entire room had fallen through the floor into the entryway below. Splintered floorboards and broken piping ringed the walls where the floor had once been. My E.F.S. was now showing several bars. Some red, some blue. Some flickered back and forth between colors and some disappeared altogether, reappearing after a few seconds. I couldn't tell which ones were above or below me or how far out any were.

I knew that the E.F.S. could tell when somepony, or something, was hostile--how, I doubt anypony knows, well, anypony still living at least--but this was the first time I'd actually encountered red bars. I didn't really have any clue about just how hostile something had to be be for it to show up red. I hoped the fact that several bars kept going back and forth between red and blue meant they wouldn't be any one of those things Chrysanthemum had mentioned that would kill me (or worse) on sight and that if I just kept my distance, they'd ignore me.

I glided across the room to the open doorway on the far wall. Peeking my head around, I looked up and down the hall. It looked clear but was too narrow to continue flying through so I folded in my wings and landed carefully in the hall. The floor creaked under my hooves as I touched down and I held perfectly still, listening. The creaking stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief. Having a lighter build than your average pony had its advantages.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it more than a half-dozen paces down the hall before it gave out anyway. The floor creaked and then there was a loud crack before I was dropped straight down to the ground floor. It didn't stop there, though. I landed hard on my flank then that floor gave way. And again before I finally came to a stop, all the debris clattering around and on top of me.

My everything hurt. So I just kind of laid there amid a pile of broken wood, floor and ceiling tiles, staring up through the three or four stories I’d just fallen through. Then a head poked down through the hole in the ceiling above me. A blue mare with a black and white mane tied back into a braid.

“Are you okay down there? Anything I can do to help?”

"Yes!" I wheezed, "In the name of Celestia, don't just sit there and do nothing!"

I choked back a cough from all the dust kicked up by my fall while she dropped down through the hole and landed gracefully with a few flaps of her wings. She had on a charcoal grey barding that looked like some kind of uniform with pockets everywhere and a pair of silvery metal bars pinned on her collar. She also wore a matching grey cap with some kind of badge I couldn't quite make out on the front of it. She carried a canteen over each shoulder and a strange harness over her back. The harness carried some kind of boxy-looking thing with a red crystal at the end of a long rod on her left side. On her right was what I could only guess was some kind of gun, though it was a hell of a lot larger than the revolver I was carrying--its barrel must have been at least twenty millimeters in diameter!

"Careful, try not to move," she said as she started pulling debris off of me. I just kind of groaned in response, not really wanting to move anyway. Though I did wiggle my hind hooves a bit just to make sure I could still feel them.

She pulled a particularly heavy piece of wood off my side, freeing the wing it'd pinned down. I gave it a flex and winced a bit. It felt strained and bruised but at least it wasn't broken. I figured I could probably still fly if I needed to but it'd be best to stay off that wing for a while. I noticed then that the blue mare had stopped and was just looking at me. I looked up at her, watching her gaze.

"Um... is there a problem?" I asked hesitantly.

She opened her mouth and paused a moment before speaking. "You're from a stable, aren't you? Are you all alone out here?"

I gave a little nod and rolled to my side, crawling out of the rubble. "Yeah, I-" I wheezed and coughed again as I tried to speak. She took off one of her canteens and held it out to me. I sat down, grabbed the canteen in my forehooves, and took a long drink from it to settle my cough. I offered it back to her but she just held up her hoof and shook her head.

"You hold onto it," she said with a warm little smile. "I'm Starry Night," she said as she sat down across from me. "Are you alright?"

"I'm alright," I said reflexively, looking back at her. Her smile faded a little. "No, really. I'm fine. Just a few scrapes and bruises. I've had worse."

"What are you doing out here all by yourself?" she asked, reaching a forehoof towards me. I flinched away and she stopped. "You sure you're okay?"

"Y-yeah. I'm fine," I told her and took another drink from the canteen. As I went to replace the cap I noticed that I was shaking. I bit my lip and looked away from her. "I... I was exiled," I said with a heavy sigh, "I don't... I don't know what I'm doing out here." I managed to keep from breaking down and crying like a little foal. After all, there was no going back; I had to accept that and move on. Crying about it wouldn't change anything.

I took a few deep breaths and managed to steady myself. Turning back to face her, I saw that Starry had moved closer. I could make out the symbol on her cap now: a golden badge with a rampant pegasus between two columns. She was still just sitting there, watching me with wide, deep purple eyes. "What's your name?" she asked in a gentle tone.

"D-Day, ma'am," I answered, clearing my throat, "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing out here. You're only the second pony I've met since..."

She was quiet for bit before asking, "What did they exile you for?"

I looked away from her. My ears folded back as I answered hesitantly, "I killed somepony."

There was a long silence after I said that. In the corner of my eye I saw her hoof come towards me again and again I flinched away. She paused but only briefly. "It's okay," she said reassuringly. "You said your name's Day?" I nodded and she continued reaching out to my chin, turning my head back to face her. "Is that your full name?"

I winced at her touch but didn't fight it. "Just Day, ma'am."

"Please, call me Starry," she said with an encouraging, if forced, smile. She glanced up and furrowed her brow in concern. "What happened to your ear, Day?"

I put a hoof up to my left ear. It was ragged and missing the tip. "Oh. I uh... got clipped by a fan blade while I was making repairs one time when I was little."

"In the stable? You do a lot of repair work there?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I work in maintenance. Got to know practically every inch of the stable," I said with a little bit of pride. It faded quickly though. "I mean... I used to work..."

"Did you mean to do it? Did you mean to kill somepony?" Starry asked bluntly. Her gentle tone suddenly much more serious.

"I- I- Well... it was... just-" I stammered. I bit my lip and winced then sighed and hung my head. "I didn't have a choice." I turned away again. "Please, ma'am-"

"Starry."

"...Starry. Please, can we not talk about it?"

She was silent again for a moment. Thankfully, she didn't press the issue. "Okay. You don't have to tell me about it. Are you okay to walk? We should get moving," she said as she stood up and adjusted her gear.

I turned back to look at her and she was just smiling. I could tell it was a forced smile but there was a sincere glimmer in her eyes. "You're... You're taking me with you?"

"Well I can't leave you here all alone and quite frankly I could use the company," Starry said as she took a sip from her canteen. "Plus I think I owe you," she added, turning to start walking and continuing as I followed alongside her, "I was trying to find a way down to the lower levels but the stairwell and the elevator shaft are blocked off. I was about to try clearing a way with explosives when you came crashing through. Saved me the trouble at least." Lucky for her.

I took a look around for the first time since landing down there. There was some light that came down through my hole in the ceiling but there weren't any windows and naturally the light fixtures didn't work after two centuries so there wasn't a whole lot I could see. I turned on my PipBuck light and waved my foreleg around, casting pale blue light around the room. I'd apparently fallen through into the middle of what looked like some kinda old records storage room with rows of filing cabinets lining the walls on either side.

"That's a useful little light you've got there, Day," Starry said as she tapped something that was clipped on the side of her cap. It was a small black cylinder with a clear gemstone at the front. When she tapped it the gemstone began to glow. Turning her head to scan the surroundings, she shone the light around the room.

I looked up at Starry, the light of my PipBuck making her blue coat glow brightly. "It's my PipBuck. Everypony in the stable has one. It's a very smart tool," I said, putting it rather simply, "It's got a spell matrix built into it that does a lot of different things like one spell that keeps track of the things I'm carrying or Eyes Forward Sparkle which-" I stopped at that, realizing suddenly that I hadn't been paying attention to my E.F.S..

"Um.. ma'am? Starry? I think we're surrounded by something... Something my E.F.S. says is hostile. There's a lot of 'em and they're moving around a lot."

Starry looked around, her ears swiveling about and her face scrunched up in concentration. Her expression softened after a moment though and she just smiled at me. "Sounds like it's just radroaches. Don't worry about it, I've been handling them since I got here," she said, motioning with her head to the boxy thing on her side.

I wasn't really sure what a radroach was but I figured I'd find out soon enough. Starry at least didn't seem concerned about it.

"What is that you're wearing anyway?" I asked as we walked up to the door at the front of the room. Starry held up a hoof for me to be quiet while she pressed her ear to the door before trying the handle. It was locked.

Starry practically squeed as she sat down and pulled a screwdriver out from one of her pockets. With one of her wings she deftly pulled a bobby pin out from under her cap and slipped it into the lock. Holding the screwdriver in her teeth she barely tapped the it and the lock opened right up for her. She put her tools away and took a sip from her canteen before opening the door all the way and trotting through.

"It's my battle saddle," Starry answered belatedly as we ventured out into the hallway, "It carries larger weapons more comfortably for me."

"Those are both weapons then?"

Starry just smiled and turned her head down a side hall as we passed; the light on her cap sent several large insects scurrying. I guessed those must have been the radroaches she'd mentioned. There was a loud metallic thump from the large gun on Starry's right side followed a moment later by a bright flash and an explosion down at the other end of the hallway. The roaches were little more than a gooey paste along the floor and walls afterwards.

I might have been more in awe if it hadn't left my ears ringing. Not to mention the fact that setting off an explosive in a building this close to collapsing didn't seem like any sort of good idea. "Caesar's ass! What are you thinking?" I yelled over the ringing in my ears.

Starry gave me a strange look but then started laughing. "Don't worry, they're only anti-personnel rounds. Won't do any real harm to the building." Her ears perked and she turned on the spot, aiming down the hall in the direction we'd been going, and a (thankfully quiet) beam of crimson light streaked down the hall. I caught a faint glimpse of another roach as its whole body glowed briefly before settling into a loose pile of ash.

"Magical energy rifle," Starry explained over her shoulder at me, "A solid hit with a laser will ash just about anything," she said with a cocky grin before taking another drink from her canteen.

I have to admit, I was rather impressed by her weapons and her apparent skill with them and I was grateful she wasn't pointing them at me. I just wished she had shown better judgement than to use explosives inside a building.

"Come on. The elevator should be down at the other end of this hall," Starry said, heading off without another word.

I followed after her, pausing a moment to look at the ash pile that had been one of those giant roaches. I shuddered to imagine myself in the kind of world where something that could do that existed--or worse, that such a thing was needed out here. I tried to remind myself that such a thing was the product of Old Equestria--from the war; from when ponies fought each other.

I didn't linger too long but as I followed Starry I saw that we were passing several open rooms that looked like they could have been worthwhile to scavenge through--maintenance closets, terminal rooms, and the like.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but what are you here for?"

"I told you, you can call me Starry. And I'm looking for something."

"Like scavenging you mean? 'Cuz I think we passed-"

"I'm looking for something specific and I need to get down to the bottom level to find it. Here we go." She stopped after rounding a corner at the end of the hall. We stood in front of an elevator door. Starry put her ear against it and tapped her hoof, listening for a moment before standing back with a grin. "Okay, give me a hoof with this," she said as she braced herself against the seam of the door.

I moved in beside her and together we pushed the door open. There was a screeching sound of metal against metal from a clear lack of maintenance. It sounded like the bearings hadn't been oiled in- well... two centuries I guess.

Once we had the door open Starry stuck her head in and looked down through the open shaft, her wings spread open. "Here we go!"

"Whoa! Wait!" I called out. She stopped and looked back at me. "Let me take a look at what's in there before you just jump in like that." Starry folded her wings and stepped back, giving me a nod to go ahead while she unscrewed the cap on her canteen. I leaned in and looked up, holding out my PipBuck light to so I could see. It looked like the elevator car was stopped a couple floors above us.

"You sure seem to know what you're doing," Starry commented while I was looking around.

"I basically grew up in maintenance," I said while continuing my inspection. Part of the building had shifted and bent the shaft, making it virtually impossible for the car to fall any lower without being completely demolished. There was a fair amount of debris that had collected along the sides of the shaft that would likely come loose if the building shifted, though.

"Starry, can you shine your light down so I can see the bottom?" I asked and she obliged, leaning in and looking down with me. I could see the counterweight laying at the bottom of the shaft some three stories down, the cables snapped; it was only the bend in the shaft keeping the car aloft. I couldn't see the emergency brakes from the bottom side but even if they had all failed, I reasoned it would be safe to fly down.

"Okay, looks safe, ma'am," I said.

"Starry. You should relax a little, kid," she said, giving me a pat on my shoulder which made me flinch from a bruise there. She didn't seem to notice, however, and dropped down the shaft with her wings spread. My injured wing ached as I followed after her but I made it to the bottom without complaint.

Starry was already pushing on the elevator door and I joined her, the door screeching as we opened it. We stepped out into what was apparently some kind of lobby area with seats along the walls to either side of us. There was one large desk facing the elevator and several other desks behind it.

As we trotted into the large room, shining our lights around, I realized there were several red bars on my E.F.S. that started moving around a lot faster than before. Starry had already stopped when I heard the buzzing. It was different from the chittering noises the roaches had made. I started seeing shadows moving around in the darkness and backed up behind Starry. Then one of those shadows moved into the light from Starry's headlamp.

Chirrirp.

It was some kind of bug. Small, round, with four little legs and it just sort of hovered there.

And then there was a flash and the bug disintegrated like the roach upstairs.

"Shit. Parasprites. Day, stay back and keep your eyes open. Get your pistol out. You cover the right side, I'll watch the left."

"I don't understand? What's a-"

"Gun. Now."

I hesitated. "Um, I've never fired a gun before, ma'am."

She glanced back at me, biting her lip. Her ears swiveled around, listening as the buzzing and chirping noises got louder and more numerous. "Alright. Stay behind me. You said you have an E.F.S.? Use it to tell me where they're coming from. I'll try to corral them together and take 'em all out at once."

I nodded and started following the bars on my compass. There were a lot of them and they were moving around quickly so it was hard to keep track. "There's a big group to the left."

Starry turned and fired off several rapid shots with her laser rifle. I saw a small glow where she must have hit one. "They're scattering. Most of them to the right." A few more shots streaked off through the dark while Starry kept turning her head side-to-side, shining her light around to watch for any coming close. The rest of the first group moved back to the right after a couple other bars vanished from my compass.

"They're massing on the right now."

"I see them."

I looked up from my compass and I could actually see the swarm now in the light of Starry's headlamp. Celestia above, there were dozens of them and coming straight at us now. I think I even saw one of them licking its lips.

"Fire in the hole!"

"Wha-"

Thunk.

Boom!

Starry fired off her grenade rifle and the round went off right in the middle of the swarm. I was blinded for a moment by the flash of the explosion and my ears were once again ringing.

"Are there any more?" Starry yelled. I suppose her ears were ringing as well.

The air reeked of ozone and what I could only assume was the scent of burnt and splattered parasprite. It seemed like Starry's plan had worked. I looked around, watching my E.F.S.. "I think there's a few left but they're scattered. Might not even be in this room." I certainly couldn't hear them anymore but I couldn't hear my own hoofsteps for that matter.

I pointed Starry in the general direction and sat there quietly as she told me to hang back while she secured the area. She scanned around the room briefly then headed off through the door on the left side of the room, leaving me behind to wait.

A red bar to my right started moving around and I looked over to see a lone parasprite lazily making its way toward me. It chirped and landed near me, looking up with these wide eyes that didn't hold a single glimmer of malice in them. Maybe the E.F.S. is wrong about its hostility? I wondered. I reached out a hoof and the 'sprite chirped and flew up to land on it. I smiled at the bug and I think it even smiled back.

Then it bit me.

I let out a yelp and flailed my hoof wildly, shaking it loose, before I scampered over to the other side of the room. I pulled my gun out, took aim at the parasprite and bit down.

The gun was loud. I briefly thought I might have gone deaf in one ear and felt like it nearly broke my jaw with the force of the shot. And for all that, I still missed the 'sprite.

There was a hot kick right in my thigh. It wasn't the worst pain I'd ever felt but I still dropped my gun as I yelped again and staggered back with a limp. I hadn't just missed. No, I don't deserve to be that lucky. I'd shot myself with the ricochet.

Starry came running back and reacted right away. Turning to face the last remaining parasprite, she fired off her energy rifle and the bug evaporated in a cloud of dust. She scanned around the room, swiveling her ears constantly, until she was satisfied that was the last of them. Meanwhile, I'd hobbled my way back toward the elevator and pulled my bags off so I could get a better look at the injury.

Blood ran down my hind leg from a gash just below my cutie mark. It didn't look too bad but I was more frustrated that I'd actually managed to shoot myself the very first time I ever fired a gun. As Starry approached, carrying my gun with her, I just folded my ears and looked down. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I-"

"Starry," she corrected me as she set the gun down, "And it's alright, Day." She glanced over at my saddlebag. "Let me have the key to your medkit."

"I don't have the key," I said meekly, "I just found it."

"Oh. No problem then," she said as she trotted over to the box with the faded butterfly logo, pulled out her screwdriver and bobby pin, and slipped them into the lock. She had to wiggle the pin back and forth a few times before she could finally get the lock to turn all the way.

Starry put her tools away and took a sip from her canteen before opening up the medkit. She looked inside and frowned. "Okay, well... Not much to work with but it'll do. Hold still. This is gonna hurt," she said before coming up with a pair of forceps in her mouth.

I nodded quietly and laid down on my side for her, looking back and watching as Starry leaned in with those forceps. She stuck them in the open wound and pain flared up all through my leg. I yelped loudly and kicked out with my hind leg. Starry managed to hop back out of range just before my hoof would have hit her in the face.

"Whoa there! Easy. I gotta dig it out or it won't heal right."

I sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Starry said calmly as she took a careful step forward. I just watched her quietly, trying to focus on my breathing while the pain died down. "Ready to try again?"

I nodded, watching as she came closer again. My leg started to tense up.

"That's an interesting cutie mark you have, Day," she said as she leaned in cautiously, not yet digging into the wound. "What's it mean?"

"It's a puzzle piece," I said rather flatly.

"It sounds pretty special to me--every piece is unique isn't it? And each one has a place where it fits in with the ones around it. Maybe you just need to find your place."

Like I hadn't heard that a dozen times growing up. "I'm just good at puzzles," I said, rolling my eyes. At least she hadn't sounded condescending while she said it.

I glanced back at her own flank, noticing her cutie mark for the first time: a pattern of stars arranged in some kind of cross shape. "What about yours?" I asked.

"That's my compass rose," she said proudly. "My talent is finding things."

"Doesn't look like a compass..."

Starry laughed, "It's a constellation. You have to see what's not there. All done by the way."

I blinked, noticing that she'd already dropped the bullet and forceps and was reaching back into the medkit. I hadn't even felt it that time. Starry pulled out a roll of bandages and started wrapping it around my leg, tying it down tight over the wound. The pressure made me wince in slight pain but it was already starting to feel better as the healing magic imbued into the bandages set to work.

Starry noticed the bite on my foreleg and held it up in her hoof. "Parasprites are dangerous," she explained as she started wrapping it in a bandage. "They eat just about anything and a just puke up more of themselves. A single 'sprite can reduce a pony to bones and leave as a swarm in no time."

I looked down at the small blood stain in the bandage and gulped while Starry closed up the medkit and helped me pull it back on. I got back on my hooves and limped over to where Starry had left my gun and stood there just looking at it for a moment before I picked it up. As I bit down on it though I felt a pain in my jaw. I tucked the pistol back into my barding and felt along my teeth with my tongue. It felt like my gums were swollen but none of my teeth had been knocked loose, so I had that to be grateful for at least. I don't imagine dental care is easy to come by in the wasteland so a loose tooth would have been incredibly annoying.

I hobbled over to one of the desks to rummage through the drawers, adding a spark battery, a hooffull of caps, and a bottle of wonderglue to my saddlebag while Starry took another pass around the room. Continuing to scavenge through the desks, I managed to collect a few other trinkets but nothing that looked especially interesting.

One drawer I searched held two wrenches. I fit one into a tool pocket on my barding and left the other. It would only weigh me down to take both and besides, why would I ever need more than one?

I would have searched more thoroughly, tried going back up to the elevator car for scrap components, or even gone looking for another maintenance closet but Starry was apparently getting impatient.

"Come on, Day. We shouldn't stay here too long, more 'sprites could wander in any time. What I need is just down this hall. We'll grab it and get out of here and I can see about helping you with your situation."

I nodded and followed quietly as Starry lead the way.

It wasn't a very long walk before Starry stopped outside a door that looked like any one of the dozens of other doors we'd passed on the way down there. How she knew it was the room she needed, I had no idea but I trusted that she knew what she was doing.

Starry sat down at the door and pulled out her her tools, setting to work on the lock.

"Shit," she cursed as her pin broke. She had to gouge at the lock with her screwdriver to pry it loose before starting over with a new pin she pulled out from under her cap. She jiggled the lock back and forth a few times before it broke the second pin.

"Arrgh! Fucking Goddesses-damned lock!" she shouted at it as she spat her screwdriver out and gave the door a kick.

I limped back a couple steps. "Are... are you alright, ma'am?"

"I'm fine," she grumbled, drinking from her canteen. She took a deep breath, picked up her screwdriver, and pulled out another bobby pin. This time she finally managed to open the lock, though not without a few more curses muffled around her screwdriver.

Starry put her tools away and pulled the door open, trotting in. I followed after her and looked around inside the room. It looked a lot like the room I'd met her in, only larger. Rows of filing cabinets seemed to stretch forever into the darkness, dimly lit by Starry's headlamp and my PipBuck light.

Chirrirp.

We came to a dead stop. I glanced at my E.F.S., reporting to Starry, "Looks like there's only one.. wait.. tw- thre- um... Shit. That's a lot." What had appeared as only one bar started spreading out rapidly, as though there had been dozens all stacked on top of each other.

The buzzing started getting loud very quickly and Starry turned in place, breaking for the door. "Shit! There's a hive in here! Move it! Run!"

That very moment, I saw the swarm as it drifted into the ambient blue glow of my PipBuck light. I didn't have to be told twice and hurried after her. The wound in my hind leg complained but I ran on despite it. It hurt, yeah, but fuck if I was gonna be eaten alive and puked back up as a swarm!

We burst through the door and I kicked it shut behind me. We both sat there, panting as we stared at the door and listened to the parasprites smacking against it. We didn't have long to feel safe though, our eyes going wide as we saw the handle start to turn.

I ran up and threw my weight against the door to hold it shut while the parasprites buzzed and rammed themselves against it. "Lock it! Lock it!" I screamed anxiously. Starry hurried over and stabbed at the lock with her screwdriver, missing it a few times before finally jamming it in and giving a hard twist. I heard the lock turn and snap as she forced it closed. Hesitantly, I stepped back from the door, watching it. It rattled a bit but the lock held.

"Fuck!" Starry ground her teeth, pacing back and forth with her tail twitching behind her. She paused to take a long drink from her canteen, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath while she fumbled with the cap a bit before getting it secured and leaving the canteen to hang back at her side.

"Um... Starry, ma'am, are you sure this is the right room? Maybe it's-"

"It's the right room," she said curtly. "We just need to... to..." She resumed pacing while muttering to herself, pausing occasionally to tap the side of her head with her hoof as if she could shake loose an idea. Her eyes looked sunken and tired, her cap was crooked, stray hairs that had come loose from her braid dangled in front of her face, and her wings flared and beat erratically, feathers ruffled. To say she looked a mess would have been putting it kindly.

I lifted my PipBuck and clicked through the menus to bring up the automap spell which gave me a rough blueprint of the surrounding area. It looked like there were no other ways in or out of that room. I started wondering if maybe there was some way we could maybe round up the parasprites like before to make them easier to deal with. Maybe a single well-placed explosive would-

"-take out the whole hive in one bang!" Starry said excitedly. I looked up. She'd managed to pull herself together apparently. Her cap was straight, her wings neatly folded to her sides and though her braid was still coming undone, she'd swept the stray hairs out of her face which was looking less strained now.

"Do what now?" I asked.

"It's so simple, come on," Starry said as she set off down the hallway at a rapid clip. I followed, keeping pace despite my wounded leg while she explained. "We can't get through that many parasprites with the guns we've got. Not with a hive in there," she said as we rounded a corner, "but the hive is right against the wall."

We stopped in front of a door and Starry put her ear to it, listening quietly for a moment before trying the handle. Locked. Without even blinking, Starry had her screwdriver and a bobby pin out. She barely tapped the lock and it opened right up for her. Letting the door swing open, Starry trotted in with a pleased grin on her face.

I followed and nearly ran into her as she stopped short, firing off three quick shots with her laser rifle. I saw two clouds of ash fall to the floor and a third parasprite drop behind a desk on the right side of the room. Starry continued without missing a beat, moving straight for the back wall, "I just have to set a shaped charge against the wall here and we'll blow the wall in over the hive, burying most of the 'sprites and then what's left I can mop up quickly. Then we grab the records and we can go. Easy."

"Whoa, whoa, wait," I said, "That's a support column right there. You'll bring the whole building down on us!"

Starry glanced at the column that was right next to the wall she was intending to demolish. She pursed her lips and tapped her chin with her hoof a few times. "Hmm. Nope. We'll be safe. Don't worry. Shaped charge. It'll all go into the wall. You'll see. Just sit tight."

She was busy rigging together... whatever it was she was rigging together. I guessed I would just have to trust her judgement. She did seem to know what she was doing after all.

Chirrirp.

"What wa-"

"The third 'sprite. I musta just dazed it. Go and finish it off, would you?" Starry's ear barely twitched when she heard the sound and she didn't even look up from what she was doing to answer the question she didn't let me finish.

I trotted around behind the desk where I'd seen the parasprite fall. Sure enough it looked like it was still alive, though it was burned pretty bad, making it a two-toned pastel green and charred black. It was barely moving, its wings buzzing occasionally as it tried to right itself. I felt kinda sad for the little thing. They actually were kinda cute when they weren't trying to eat me alive. It even showed up blue on my E.F.S..

"Day, just hurry up and stomp the thing and get over here. I need you to gimme a hoof setting this thing."

"I don't think it's any danger," I said as I turned to face her, "It's just-" I stopped as I heard a ripping sound followed by a clatter of my entire saddlebag contents spilling onto the ground. I looked back to see I'd stepped on one of the threads hanging off the frayed seams and pulled it wide open. Just my rotten luck.

I gave a sheepish grin, my ears folding back as I ducked my head when Starry came over. She didn't say anything. She didn't even look mad, she just started gathering up my things and tucking them away in her own bags.

"Sorry, ma'am. I just-"

"Starry. And it's alright, Day," she said, facing me with a smile, "We'll get it patched up when we get back to-" she stopped short, her eyes looking past me and her mouth agape in a look of mixed disbelief and horror. I turned around to look and saw that in the commotion, the surviving parasprite had snuck away from us and was now trying to fly off with the explosives Starry had been working on.

It would have been an impressive sight if it wasn't for the fact that it was far too small to be carrying that much weight and it was dragging the explosives right toward the support column. It strained and managed to actually lift the charge off the ground. Then it apparently stalled out and dropped like a high explosive rock. Starry grabbed me and pulled me down behind the desk. She laid atop me with her hooves clamped around my ears which did little to muffle the noise of the explosion that followed.

The desk was blown into us and we crashed into the wall, pinning my strained wing against it painfully. I tried to scream as I felt my whole body crushed under the weight but all the air had been squeezed out of my lungs. All of that happened within a second before the desk fell away and I collapsed on the floor. I opened my eyes and tried to stand but everything around me was spinning.

As the room started to steady I realized somepony was missing. I looked around for Starry. The wall had blown through into the next room, destroying the hive like planned after all. I felt, more than heard, the dull thud of Starry's grenade rifle going off a few times. Presumably clearing out straggling parasprites in the room. Then I realized just how bad the damage had been.

"Starry!" I yelled. At least I think I yelled. I could only hear a ringing in my ears. "Starry! The support column!" I looked up at the ceiling where the column once stood. There were big cracks and exposed rebar was poking through. I could see the cracks spreading like a completed puzzle falling apart. "Starry! We need to get out of here! Starry!"

Starry ran out of the hole in the wall while stuffing a stack of folders into her saddlebag with her wing. Her mouth was moving but I couldn't make out anything she was saying. I got the distinct impression she didn't need me to tell her the building was about to come down on top of us though. She practically shoved me out through the doorway and we took off running back to the elevator shaft.

The whole building shook and debris started falling down on us as we flew up the elevator shaft. My strained wing burned with the effort to pull me up the shaft but I pushed through it, wincing and gasping with each beat of my wings. Starry reacted to dodge the incoming debris before I could even see it so I stuck close behind her, keeping a tight formation until we emerged out the doors we'd forced open earlier.

We scrambled through the halls as the building gave another lurch. My hearing started to come back as we rounded another corner. The pain in my wing and hind leg made it hard to keep up and I was falling behind when I heard a loud crash coming from above. I skidded to a stop just as the ceiling collapsed in front of me, cutting me off from Starry.

"Starry! What do I do!" I yelled while frantically trying to pull open a hole in the fallen debris so I could fit through.

I could see through smaller holes in the rubble. Starry was looking around the edges of the debris. She paused for a moment then looked at me. "Stand back," she said calmly as she pulled out a grenade.

My eyes went wide. "Are you crazy! These are load-bearing walls!"

She wedged the grenade down low in the pile. "Day, listen to me. What I'm telling you is the honest truth: you'll be safe. Just take cover and start running the second it blows."

I bit my lip, staring at her through the rubble. I had to trust her. I galloped back down the hall and ducked around the corner, covering my ears with my hooves and cringing as I waited. I heard a muffled "Fire in the hole!" then a loud BANG! Celestia above, I could feel the wall behind me shake and creak as the explosion tore through it. I screamed. I was a goner for sure!

But I wasn't dead yet. I looked around the corner and to my amazement the walls were still standing. Shrapnel and debris were scattered everywhere and there was a hole blown through the floor but I had a clear path now. I could see Starry at the other end of the hall, motioning for me to hurry. I took off with a flying gallop after her as the whole building gave another shake. My injured wing and leg protested with every stride but I grit my teeth and kept moving.

I caught up to Starry and we took off running down the corridor together. Rounding a corner, we made it to the room where I'd fallen through and we both flew straight up through the pony-sized holes to the ground level and took off running again.

We were in the final stretch. The entrance was right ahead of us, blocked by as much rubble as it always had been but the collapsed floor from the room above gave us a clear shot to the open window I'd come in through. Or it would have given us a clear shot if the next floor up hadn't collapsed down and blocked our only exit.

"Starry!" I yelled even as we kept running straight at it.

"I see it," she said confidently. In one fluid motion she pulled out another grenade, bit out the pin, tossed it up, rounded on her front hooves and kicked out with a hindhoof. The grenade went soaring right up toward that collapsed ceiling and while still in the same motion, Starry tackled me through an open doorway to a side room. She held me down and clamped her hooves around my ears as exactly at that moment I heard the grenade explode. Before I had even fully processed what had just happened, Starry was pulling me back out of the room, yelling, "Move! Move! Move!"

The way was clear, I could see a dim amber glow through the open window and made a mad dash for it, Starry right behind me. As luck would have it though, as I sailed through the window, the pain in my wing flared as the muscles seized up. I let out a pained cry and dropped straight down to the ground alongside the building, landing hard on that same wing while Starry made a safe landing several feet away.

I coughed and gasped for breath, the wind knocked out of me. I rolled over off my wing and onto my back to see a huge chunk of the concrete wall hanging perilously several feet above me. I watched in wide-eyed horror as the rebar holding it up creaked and bent while a widening crack ran down the wall, threatening to drop it right onto me. I tried to move, to scream but I couldn't breathe. It was all I could to do just flail helplessly while struggling for air.

"Not again!" I heard Starry yell. Of course I needed saving again. She was on me in an instant, grabbing the collar of my stable barding in her teeth and pulling me out of the way. Starry dragged me across the split and rocky pavement while I continued choking to suck in air.

I heard the crack of splitting concrete followed soon after by a smash against the ground where I'd lain helplessly just a few moments before. Then the weight of two centuries came crashing down with an earth-shaking roar of tortured metal and shattered concrete. The building's collapse threw up a thick cloud of dust that swallowed us whole and luck would have it that the first deep breath I was able to take in was full of dirt.

I was nearly blacking out from suffocation by the time we stumbled our way out of the cloud, hacking and wheezing and half-blind. I downed the last of my canteen to wash the grit out of my throat and I could see Starry doing the same while I tried to rub the dust out of my eyes.

I looked back at the collapsed ruin as the cloud dispersed. I could still hear concrete crumbling as it settled down into itself. That building had stood the test of time for two centuries then I had to come along on my first day in the wasteland. Now it lay in a jumbled, gruesome heap like the rest of its brothers.

"Woo! Haha!" Starry let out a yell and began laughing. I turned to face her. She'd finished off her canteen and had pulled a metal flask out from one of her pockets. She was taking a long draught off of that now. Her face twisted up briefly and she shook her head as she let out another excited yell and stomped her hoof before capping her flask and tucking it away. "That was one hell of a race, kid," she chuckled and looked over at me with a wry grin, "So. You gonna tell me your whole name now or you gonna make me guess it? 'Cuz after a run like that there's only one thing it could be."

"It's just-" I stopped. I couldn't hold out any longer it seemed. "I'm..." I hung my head and sighed, "I'm Lucky. Lucky Day."

And that's when it started raining.

Chapter 2: The Schoolyard

Those from whom we are always learning are rightly called our masters; but not every one who teaches us deserves this title.

In the wake of the building collapse, Starry was cheering in celebration of having escaped alive and with whatever it was she'd been looking for. She was hopping around and taking drinks out of a metal flask she kept in one of her pockets. I, on the other hoof, was sitting on the uneven road, sulking while the dust cloud settled around us. I was in no mood to celebrate. I ached all over, my wing especially after having strained it in the flying gallop out of the building and then having fallen out of a second-story window onto it.

Worst of all, Starry had gotten me to give up my full name. I hated my name and I'd hoped to leave it behind. It had always been the source of endless teasing. Even the good-natured jokes had grown tiresome years ago. Nevermind the fact that I had to have the worst possible luck. It seemed like something I'd never be able to leave behind and I was starting to feel like only the worst things from the stable had come with me into the outside world.

But then it started raining.

The first few drops hit my face and I looked up. The clouds had turned dark quickly, completely blacking out the sky. There was a low rumble from somewhere distant and then the rain began to fall in full force. I was soaking wet in seconds but I didn't mind. The rain was cool but not cold and it was actually somewhat refreshing after everything I'd just been through.

"Shit. Come on, Day," Starry called, launching herself into the air. "If we hurry we can make it back to where I'm staying before it's too dark. It's just a short flight north... ish... from here," she said, waving her hoof somewhere vaguely eastward. She squinted as she tried to see through the haze of the pouring rain, presumably looking for a landmark.

"Come on already," she called again, her forelegs folded across her chest as she hovered there impatiently, water dripping off the brim of her cap.

I looked back at my wing. It hung limply at my side and when I tried to move it, pain flared up in the shoulder joint. I bowed my head, ears folded back, "I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't fly."

Starry landed next to me, nearly tripping over her own hooves. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"I think I dislocated my wing when I fell out of the building." I took a slow breath. "Can you help me pop it back in?" I asked, looking up at her timidly.

She shifted nervously on her hooves. "I don't really know anything about that..."

"I do. Just grab hold... there's fine," I directed her as she clamped her forehooves on my wing. She extended it, making me wince. "Okay." I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying stay relaxed. "Pull."

Starry hesitated but only for a moment before she started pulling on my wing. I gritted my teeth and stomped a hoof at the ground. "Ngh! Harder. Pull harder." I grunted and leaned away from Starry to add my weight to the effort, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible. The joint moved around out of its socket, a knot of pain that flared as it was pulled taut. My wing shoulder screamed, threatening to seize up. Struggling to breathe between pained gasps, I fought the reflex to tense my wing. I couldn't hold back the tears that rolled down my cheeks, washed away in the rain. "Twist. Forward! Keep pulling!" I yelled as she started to ease up just as it was almost there.

Finally, with a sickening sort of crunching pop, the joint fit back into place and I let out a scream of pain, finally allowing myself to tense up. I collapsed over onto my side and just lay there, catching my breath while the rain beat down on me. It had been the second worst pain I'd ever felt. Sometimes pieces just don't seem to fit where they belong.

Starry was quiet for a while before she sat down beside me and gently put a hoof on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I said as I sat up slowly and looked back at my wing, giving it a flex. I could move it but it hurt too much to put any more strain on it. "Can you help me bandage it to keep it steady?"

She nodded and opened up my medkit, pulling out what remained of the bandages in there, then helped me wrap the joint and tied it off around my wing to keep it immobilized and supported. There was a slight tingle of warmth in my wing shoulder as the magic-infused bandages set to work. They helped ease the swelling but were really much better for healing open wounds. I wouldn't be able to fly for a few days or probably at least a week while it healed.

Starry looked at me, the rain wasn't getting any lighter and I was starting to shiver. "We should find some shelter," she said. I nodded in agreement and she took to the air again to get a better view of our surroundings. Landing after a minute, with another brief stumble, Starry motioned for me to follow her as she headed off towards the outskirts of the city ruins at a rapid clip.

I had a bit of a struggle to keep up; my hind leg still hurt. Glancing back, I could see blood seeping through the bandages, the rain washing it down my leg. All the running must have opened the wound. I figured it would probably stop bleeding once I was able to lay down and stay off it for a while.

"Day! Over here!" Starry yelled. I looked up from my leg and hurried over to where she'd found something. A heavy slab of concrete was propped up over the crushed remains of an old wagon. Approaching, I was at first skeptical—it looked like just a pile of rubble—but as I came closer I could see what Starry had spotted. The large slab provided shelter from the rain while other assorted scraps and chunks of concrete covered the opening and diverted water away from it, leaving a completely dry alcove underneath.

There was a lot of debris covering the entrance, making it a tight squeeze to fit through, but I'd had enough experience crawling around in confined spaces to fit in easily enough. Starry, however, had to unbuckle her battle saddle and drag it along with her tail to fit through. It was only barely accessible and I certainly never would have spotted it myself. Good at finding things, indeed.

The space was cramped, forcing us to sit hunched over but at least it was dry. Starry pulled out her flask and took another long draught off it before tucking it back into her uniform. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh as she wobbled a bit and leaned against the side of the shelter. "The rain probably won't let up until morning." She yawned and hiccuped. "We should get some rest while we can."

No sooner had she suggested that than her hoof slipped out from under her and she slumped down to her side. She started giggling and hiccupping as she rolled over onto her back with a silly grin across her face. "Mmh. Sounds nice doesn't it? The rain. All... rainy-sounding..." Starry mumbled between hiccups. Her hind legs splayed out in a very... undignified position which made me blush as I quickly looked away.

"Um. Yeah... sounds like rain. I guess," I said quietly.

Starry giggled. "Hey. Hey, Day."

"Mmh?"

"Your name is Lucky." She snorted, stifling a laugh. "But you're not."

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

"Mmm... My lucky day..." Starry mumbled. Again, I just rolled my eyes. "I'm just gonna... close my eyes for a minute... just- just a minute..." she said with a sigh as she quieted down before passing out.

Following Starry's example, I closed my eyes and rested my head on my forehooves with an exhausted groan. The wound on my flank and the ache in my wing had me shifting about for a while as I tried to find the least uncomfortable position. My wet barding clung to me, bunching up and pulling around my shoulders, aggravating bruises. Eventually I abandoned the effort, opening my eyes and sitting up. My mind was racing with everything I'd been through that day. So I just sat there quietly, taking the time to think.

I had no idea just how dangerous the wasteland could be. I missed the stable but at the same time I realized that as long as I stayed focused on the task at hoof, I didn't have time to think about what I'd...

I looked back over at Starry's face. She was a fair bit older than me but still in her prime. I assumed that the white streaks in her mane were natural and not from age. She'd helped me and she'd protected me when I probably would have gotten killed by myself. It wasn't hard to get along with her.

I couldn't help but wonder about her reasons for helping me. They always told us that ponies in the world outside didn't get along; that they fought each other all the time for no reason. Starry wasn't like that, though. It dawned on me that I didn't know anything about her and I had a fleeting thought that maybe I should just leave while she was asleep.

Shaking the thought out of my head, I sighed and looked out at the rain. I had nowhere else to go. If Starry really wanted to help me, then I was in the right place. If she had other intentions, then could they be any worse than anything else the wasteland might throw at me? I didn't want to press my luck so I just layed down and sighed, closing my eyes as I listened to the rain.

I'd always liked listening to the rain in the atrium—the large central shaft that ran the height of the stable. There were sprinklers at the top that, on a regular basis, would shower the orchard below. I loved the sounds it made. Near the top it was a slight hiss with a metallic squeal as the sprinkler blades spun to spread the water out. Halfway down it was almost silent. And at the bottom were the sounds of leaves rustling and rivulets of water dripping off them and through the grated ceramic floor and into the soil underneath.

I used to sit under the trees in my free time to just listen to the rain. I remembered seeing a leaf fall down from the tree and then watching as the water collected in it drop by drop. Thinking about the rain in the stable actually brought a small smile to my face as I sat there in our little shelter, listening to the downpour. It made a rapid drumming sound that, after listening to it drone on for a while, started sounding like the static I'd hear if I had tuned my PipBuck radio away from one of stable channels.

I felt a strange, calm sort of dissonance about my situation. Cold, soaking wet, alone save for the passed-out mare next to me; the stable was all but a distant memory... And I felt fine. Life as I'd known it was over but it was just a matter of accepting that and moving on. I'd be okay.

On a whim, I brought up my PipBuck radio and started clicking through frequencies. The first one was only static, as was the second. I wondered if anypony even had working broadcasters out here. The PipBuck only played more static as I clicked through a third, fourth, and fifth channel. With each one, I became increasingly convinced that my PipBuck might be the only working piece of technology left in the wasteland. Before giving up and turning the radio off, I gave it one more click.

Stop and listen to them, my little pony. They have stories to tell.

That got my attention. The transmission wasn't very clear; the signal was broken up by the whine and pop of background static while the voice itself was deep and hoarse—like somepony who'd screamed his throat raw. He spoke with a slow, mournful tone.

The moment they're born they're already in freefall. They don't know when they'll land, but they know they'll meet their end soon, shattered to pieces and swallowed up by the earth.

Celestia wanted to hear their stories too, once. That's why She made your kind—the first pegasi were formed out of the clouds, just like the raindrops, but She gave them wings that they might live a little longer.

But you still won't live forever, my little pony. One day, you'll land for the very last time. So tell your story while you can.

The channel was quiet for a moment. I thought it might have stopped transmitting but it was just dead air, not completely static. Then the voice spoke up again, this time with a more serious tone.

Your lucky day is coming. See you when you get there.

And with that, the signal cut out and there was only static.

I sat there for a while just staring at my PipBuck, listening to the static mixed with the pouring rain. I wasn't even sure I'd even really heard it. It was just so surreal. A chill ran up my spine and I turned the radio off.

Just accept it and move on.

I laid my head down and closed my eyes, my mind finally clear. I just wanted to forget about the strange radio broadcast and go to sleep.

***

It was sometime late in the morning when I woke up. The rain had stopped, leaving a hazy fog that lingered above the ground. The sky was still completely overcast, however. I remembered reading about how pegasi in Old Equestria were in charge of the weather but I didn't imagine that meant a constant cloud cover. Whatever had happened after the war, it looked like the sky had been left to grow wild.

I looked over at Starry. She was still sleeping but at least she'd rolled over into a less... risqué position during the night. "Starry, ma'am?" I pushed on her shoulder gently.

Starry's eyes snapped open and she immediately grabbed her battle saddle as she sat upright, banging her head on the low ceiling of our shelter. "Ah! Fucking... Son of a ..." she muttered as she rubbed her head while squinting. "Ugh... Fuck. What's going on?"

"Sorry to wake you ma'am," I started to say but Starry held up a hoof and shushed me.

She groaned and laid back down, covering her head with her forehooves. "Keep it down, will you."

I tried again, keeping my voice to a whisper, "Sorry to wake you, ma'am."

"Starry," she muttered.

"Starry. Sorry. It's just that I think we should maybe get moving. It's light out now and-"

Starry held up her hoof and hushed me again. "Shut up, kid. Just... shut up a minute." She sighed and groaned softly as she slowly sat up again, keeping one hoof across her face to block out the light while she fumbled around her uniform to take out her flask. I just sat there quietly, nervously chewing on my lip while I waited for her to tell me what to do next.

She managed to get her flask out and took a drink from it while keeping her eyes closed. After taking a few slow breaths she peeked at me through one eye. "My head's killing me. Can you get me the aspirin bottle out of my saddlebag?"

Opening my mouth to answer, I caught a brief glare from Starry and instead just nodded quietly before leaning over to rummage through her bag. There was a lot of seemingly random junk in there, most of which I wasn't even sure how to describe. I didn't have to dig very deep, though; the bottle she asked for was close to the top and I pulled it out for her.

Snatching it out of my hooves before I could offer to open it for her, Starry popped the cap and shook out  a tablet into her hoof then chewed it and washed it down with another draught from her flask. She just sat there with her eyes closed for a minute before capping her flask and the bottle and putting them away.

Opening her eyes all the way, she took a deep breath and smiled at me, patting my shoulder. "Thank you, Day. Come on," she said, jerking her head toward the outside, "let's get moving."

We emerged from the small alcove into the wet, foggy ruins. Starry pulled on her battle saddle and started heading off towards the west and I started to wonder if she knew where she was going. She'd said "north-ish" while pointing east the night before.

"Um, excuse me, ma'am," I spoke up, "but last night you were pointing the other way..."

Starry stopped and looked around then back at me. "Um... yeah. Hang on, the fog is throwing me off," she said sheepishly before lifting off and hovering a few feet in the air. With a few strong flaps of her wings, she pushed a swath of fog off to the side, clearing a view of the road I'd followed into the ruins. "There we go. Right where I left it. Come on, it's this way." She landed and trotted off along the road.

"You know, there's this place I found before I came here that might be a good place to go and it's not that far north of here," I suggested as I followed her.

"Don't worry about it. I followed this road here from where I'm staying. It'll lead us back no problem." She glanced back at me over her shoulder. "It just might take a bit longer on hoof but we'll make it there in a day or so." I guessed that Starry must have known the area well enough, certainly better than I did, so I was content to follow where she went. I was still skeptical about her sense of direction but her cutie mark was a compass—how bad could it be?

We walked along through the fog in silence for a ways. After a while, Starry paused and looked back at me. "You know, you can walk at my side. It'd be easier to talk with you while we go. I mean, unless you're just hanging back so you can admire my cutie mark," she said with a wink, making me blush and stammer incoherently.

"I- That's not- I wasn't- You're-"

Starry just laughed and waved a hoof for me to come up alongside her. "Of course not. Come along then." I bowed my head and trotted up alongside her. She smiled at me and we continued along the road.

We were both silent again until I spoke up. "Can I ask you something, ma'am?"

"Starry," she corrected me. Again. "And maybe. If you tell me why you keep calling me ma'am."

"Oh. Um... just habit I guess?" I answered, my ears folded back timidly. "I was always taught to be respectful to my-"

"You'd better not say elders."

"-betters."

That got me a strange look. We continued wandering through the fog as Starry took some time to respond. "You shouldn't think about yourself and others like that. Especially down here—you need to know what makes you special and use that to leverage what you need from other ponies or you'll get eaten alive."

I gulped at that. I understood, or at least I hoped, she didn't mean that literally of course but I couldn't help but think, I'm nopony special! Just a maintenance grunt... Unless somepony needed a kitchen appliance repaired, I doubted I had any skills I could leverage out here.

"So what was it you wanted to ask me, Day?" Starry asked, breaking me out of my introspection.

"Well, I was wondering where you're from."

Starry's face lit up and she smiled brightly. "I'm from the Grand Pegasus Enclave," she said proudly, looking skyward. "We've got cloud cities all over. It's the only bastion of real civilization to survive since the war."

I followed her gaze, looking across the bottom of that extensive cloud cover. It didn't really seem that impressive from down here. "Why aren't they tending the weather then? I thought that's what pegasi did."

"We do tend the weather. We just need all that space for cloud farming so we can feed our people. Even then, it still needs strict rationing. But once we've got everything in order, we'll be ready to come down and fix... this," she said, looking down from the sky and waving a hoof across the foggy horizon ahead of us.

There was a metallic squeal from off the side of the road just then and we both stopped, turning to go see what it was. Taking a few cautious steps off the road, we came across an old, rusted merry-go-round. The small, round metal platform squeaking as it twisted slowly, clearly off its bearings.

Starry immediately started looking around, her ears perked up and twisting around rapidly. "Come on, Day. We need to keep moving," she said in a low voice.

I nodded and we started back toward the road, passing other various playground equipment along the way. A four-seat swing set, half collapsed with one of the swings only hanging by a single chain. A slide, rusted through and riddled with small holes. A pair of see-saws, the wooden planks broken at the fulcrum, long rotten.

As the road came back into sight, I saw a sign. It was broken in half and heavily faded but I could still make out the words "elementary school." We continued on slowly, quietly. The fog was starting to thin out by the time we passed the sign and I could see the ruins of several small buildings lining the road to either side of us. They weren't the massive steel-and-concrete structures that made up the city ruins we'd left. These buildings looked like they'd been made of mostly wood. In many cases the only thing left standing was the foundation.

There was a sound from somewhere up ahead. I thought it might have been a laugh. We both stopped in our tracks. Starry's ears snapped forward instantly. It was about that time I realized I should have been watching my E.F.S.. It apparently takes some getting used to.

"Starry, ma'am," I whispered, "There's a bunch of hostile bars ahead of us on my display." I was really hoping it would turn out to just be more bugs. Just as long as it wasn't a lot more bugs...

"I think we should-" Starry was interrupted by a loud crack. I saw a flash of light somewhere ahead of us, the fog was still too thick to see clearly that far out. Something impacted the road at our hooves, throwing up dirt and fragments of asphalt. "Take cover!" Starry yelled, pushing me off to the side of the road behind a crumbled foundation. Seconds later I heard a rapid succession of loud bangs followed by a trail of impacts that lead along the ground toward us then into the low wall we were crouched behind.

"What's going on?" I asked frantically. "They're not shooting at us, are they?"

Starry reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a metal disk. She tapped a button in the center and a dim light came on with a small beep as she tossed it on the ground at the corner of the building. "Come on," she hissed at me. I followed her along the wall to the other corner where she held up a hoof to stop me before peeking around the corner and continuing along.

"They're probably raiders," she explained in a hushed voice.

"Come on out!" came a shrill, taunting voice through the fog. I heard the rapid firing again. It sounded like the impacts were still back where we'd first taken cover.

"Definitely raiders. Day, get your revolver out."

"I've still never-"

"Gun. Now! I don't care if you can't hit the broad side of a barn, I need you backing me up," Starry growled while she scooped up a rock in her hoof and tossed it back towards where she'd left that disk. I heard it land and there was another rapid burst of shots and a mad cackle.

Still, I hesitated. "I don't understand. What are raiders? Why are they shooting at us? Can't we just ask them to stop?"

She cautiously peeked her head over the low wall we were hiding behind, ducking back under quickly. "Listen to me, Day," she said with a very serious tone as she turned to face me, putting her hooves on my shoulders and looking me right in the face. "Raiders don't care who we are or what we're doing. You can't reason with raiders. They want to kill us and take everything we have." She looked around us, picking up another rock in her hoof. "If you want to come out of this alive you have to do exactly what I tell you. Understand?"

I gulped and nodded.

"Good. Now get your gun out and I want you to watch the direction we came from. Wait for that mine to go off and then you can expect to see raiders come around the corner. When you see them, shoot. I'll try to draw them around the other way but I need you to cover me." She tossed the rock over at the road. Again, several shots rang out followed this time by rapid clicking.

"Don't miss." Starry gave me a heavy pat on the shoulder, making me wince briefly, before she ducked around the corner.

Moments later there was the dull thump of Starry's grenade rifle firing, punctuated by two noisy explosions. One of the half-dozen hostile bars on my compass disappeared while I listened to the loud, crying wail of somepony in agony.

Hooves stomped rapidly along the road. There was frantic yelling mixed with sounds of gunfire. All the while that one pony's screams cut through the noise, crying out for his leg again and again.

Then came a much closer explosion. I felt the foundation behind me shake with the force of it and I heard a rain of pebbles scattering all around through the rubble. My heart was racing, I could barely breathe. I remembered what Starry had said, though, and pulled out my revolver, aiming it at the corner. I watched a single red bar on my compass moving towards me.

An earth pony the color of dried mud came around the corner. She was wearing clothes that looked like they were made from pieces of tire with metal spikes driven through it and she carried a sledgehammer in her mouth. Her beady eyes locked on me, narrowing her gaze.

I bit down on the trigger and... nothing happened. Just... Click.

It didn't fire. My eyes went wide as I watched the raider's lips drew back in a wicked grin around her hammer, dragging it along the wall. She took her time as she advanced, eyes fixed on me, daring me to shoot her. All I could do was stare at her blankly, my jaw trembling. I couldn't fire. I knew what I was supposed to do. What I had to do. But the more I mentally screamed at myself to do it, the harder it was to do.

The raider was practically on top of me. She reared up, ready to bring that hammer down on me, and I did the only thing left I could think of. I activated the Stable-tec Assisted Targeting Spell and time slowed to a crawl.

PipBucks have a lot of functions built into their spell matrixes. S.A.T.S. was one of the those functions almost nopony in the stable ever used—if they even knew it was there. Under the effects of the spell, time had virtually stopped. I couldn't move but I could think. Not that there was much thinking to do. I was about to be hit by a very large, very heavy hammer wielded by a very angry-looking mare.

The spell gave me an option to target specific areas: her head, torso, and legs. It also gave me an option to target the hammer. I figured maybe if I could just disarm her, she'd back off. Or at least I'd have a chance to run and find Starry.

I never wanted to kill anypony. So I focused on the hammer and the display indicated how much of the spell's charge it would take to fire a shot—just under one third. It also reported a ninety-five percent chance to hit. Still, not wanting to leave anything to chance, I queued up three shots.  I offered a silent prayer to the goddesses and released the spell.

My body acted as if on pure reflex the moment the targeting spell dropped, looking right up into the raider's face, I bit down on the trigger. There was a small click as the hammer came down but the gun didn't fire. On reflex, I bit down again. And again, it failed to go off.

Three in a row! My heart caught in my throat but I didn't have the chance to do anything other than follow through with the third pull of the trigger. Still in the effects of S.A.T.S., I bit down one last time and finally the gun went off. My head jerked from the recoil and I flinched, closing my eyes. I felt a warm spray across my face and when I opened my eyes, I saw what I'd done.

After that it was all kind of a blur.

I remember screaming... and blood. Celestia above, it was everywhere. It wasn't just blood either! And it was on me!

And the raider's body was just laying there. The head was-

I couldn't look away.

I tried. I wanted to. All I could do was sit there and scream until my throat was raw.

Somewhere in there I remember seeing Starry's face. She was saying something to me but I couldn't hear it. It was like everything around me was just white noise.

Somehow, I ended up laying on the ground. Slowly, I started coming to my senses. I couldn't hear any more gunfire, just a fresh ringing in my ears. I sat up slowly and looked around. I couldn't see the raider's body anymore and at first I thought that maybe it hadn't really happened but then I looked down at myself and saw the blood splattered all over my forelegs and barding.

Starry had moved me, apparently.

"I said stay back!" I heard Starry yell, followed by the quiet hum of her laser rifle firing off a few shots.

Cautiously, I moved to the edge of the wall I was behind and peeked around. Starry was taking cover behind some rubble in the middle of the road.

"And I said hold your fire! We're here to help!" a voice called from up the road in the direction the raiders had ambushed us from.

"Starry!" I called, "What's going on?"

She glanced my way and waved a hoof for me to stay back.

"We have medical supplies if you're wounded," the voice called again.

"Starry, my E.F.S. doesn't show anything hostile. Maybe we should-"

"Keep your tricks, traitor!" Starry called back while she dug a grenade out from her bags and tossed it in the direction the voice was coming from. A bright green aura caught the grenade and flung it away where it detonated harmlessly.

What else could I do?

"Don't shoot!" I yelled as I stepped out from behind cover and slowly made my way up the road.

"Day! What are you doing? Get back here before you get yourself killed!"

I ignored Starry and kept walking while she stayed where she was. After a quiet few moments with nopony yelling, a few ponies stepped out from behind cover to face me. In the lead was a pegasus stallion with a carmine coat. His yellow and red mane was faded somewhat with age or perhaps stress but he didn't look to be very old otherwise. He wore a brown coat and a battle saddle like Starry's but one side was just a plain box while the other side resembled Starry's magical energy weapon but larger with four barrels.

Two other ponies stepped out to flank him. One was a unicorn mare carrying a strange-looking zebra-striped rifle in her green aura. Though her coat was dirty and her mane tangled, she had a tall, slender build and she held herself with a sort of dignity and grace that made her appear beautiful despite her condition.

The other was a young-looking buck the color of rust with a dull brown mane. He also wore a battle saddle but it only carried a single rifle on his side.

"Um. Hi," was all I could say. I felt my hind legs weaken and I just kind of sat down, staring ahead blankly.

"Day!" I heard Starry yell as she rushed up to stand by me. "Stay back, traitor!"

"Whoa, easy there. We're just trying to help. Looks like your friend's in shock. Please, let's try not to shed any more blood today."

"Ma'am," I said quietly. Starry turned her head to look back at me. I blinked slowly as I looked at her. It was hard to think straight. I wanted to tell her something but I couldn't make any words come out.

"We have supplies back at our camp. Come with us. You and your friend will be safe there, I promise you."

She must have realized I wasn't doing well because she bit her lip and shifted nervously before turning back to the others. She was about to say something when there was a shout from over where we'd been fighting the raiders.

"There's somepony still alive over here, master! He's in bad shape!"

The older pony nodded in the direction the shout had come from  then turned to the tall unicorn at his side. "Grift, go see to him. Get him stabilized and back to camp. Ferris Wheel," he said to his rusty companion, "go with her to help carry him."

"As you wish," the mare said, galloping off with the rusty buck at her side. It was down to just me, Starry, and the carmine stallion.

"Master?" Starry said crossly. "So you're a slaver! Trying to lure us back to your slave camp!"

He just shook his head and held up a hoof. "Rockslide is a former slave. I just can't seem to get him to stop calling me that."

Starry glanced at me briefly.

"My name's Trailblazer. I'm not a slaver. I'm just out here trying to save lives. What about you?"

"Captain Starry Night. Hundred-seventy-third Enclave Engineering Brigade," she replied coldly.

"And who's your friend?"

"I'm... Lucky Day..." I said dumbly. It was getting a little easier to focus. "Ma'am, I think we should go. With them. Go with them."

Trailblazer looked off in the direction his companions had gone, nodded, then looked back at us. "We're heading back to our camp now. You're welcome to follow me. I hope that you will." With that he turned and spread his wings, flying off while keeping close to the ground.

I was still sitting there in a daze while Starry started pacing and muttering to herself. She took out her flask and took a long drink from it before putting it away and looking at me. "Shit." She sighed. "Come on, Day. Can you walk?"

It took me a second to figure out what she was asking me but once I did, I got to my hooves. I was a little shaky but I managed to stay upright. Together we followed after Trailblazer, who had lagged behind his companions enough for us to keep sight of him as we moved off the road and started winding through the hills. Starry kept watching him as we went and after my head started to clear I asked, "Is something wrong, ma'am? Why don't you get along with him?"

"He's a traitor and a terrorist. We can't trust him," she answered bluntly.

That didn't really answer my question but I was still having a hard time focusing on anything so I just let it go.

The fog had completely dissipated at some point along the way. I couldn't really be sure when. In my disoriented state, I wasn't even aware of how long we were traveling for. I vaguely remembered that Starry and I had gotten a late start around noon perhaps. The sun was somewhere behind us as we were approaching Trailblazer's camp. I didn't think to check the time on my PipBuck, though. I was just following Starry because that was all I could stay focused on.

The camp was fairly large with about a half-dozen tents of various sizes set up. There weren't very many ponies around though. The place seemed almost abandoned.

"You take this whole place for yourself?" Starry asked with a slightly bitter tone as we caught up to Trailblazer.

He shook his head. "This is just a forward base while we're out here making contacts. I've got most of my company out on scouting runs but they should be back later today. Our primary base of operations is at a facility a few days east of here."

Starry was on alert, looking around, her ears twitching back and forth.

"Why don't you two go rest inside the medical tent," Trailblazer suggested, pointing his hoof to one of the nearby tents. It was made of the same worn, faded canvas as the rest of the tents but had a yellow and pink butterfly painted on it. The paint was barely faded, looking like it'd been added fairly recently. "I'll have Grift stop in to take a look at you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go check up on the rest of the camp. I'll make time to talk with you some more later, though."

Starry and Trailblazer both just stood there for a moment. She was silently glaring at him, he was quietly smiling back at her. His eyes glanced to me and his smile faded a little. Starry also glanced over at me and sighed softly. She didn't say anything else to Trailblazer, just turned and headed off toward the medical tent. I just followed after her in my daze.

There were about a dozen cots in the tent, all empty save for the one I sat down on. I felt strange. Like I should have been upset or scared or... something. But instead it was all just kind of surreal. Like I was in a dream but not quite.

Starry had started pacing in front of me. Her wings flared and feathers ruffled. Every so often she'd stop and look over at me... then just shake her head and continue pacing.

I just sat there quietly and watched her. I tried closing my eyes but when I did I saw things that were much more real than I wanted to see. That raider... her head.... it just...

"Ugh. What's taking so long?" Starry muttered as she took out her flask for a sip.

The tall mare from before—Grift, as Trailblazer had called her—came into the tent. Her forelegs had splotches of fresh blood on them. Her horn was glowing as she entered, carrying that striped rifle in her aura. She sat it down by the tent flap and went straight for a shelving rack in the front corner of the tent, rummaging through the boxes and bags kept there.

Grift collected several things into a single bag and then left again, carrying the bag in her telekinesis. Starry looked at me in confusion. Then the mare stuck her head back into the tent, looking around briefly before grabbing her rifle in her green aura and leaving once again.

So Starry and I continued waiting. I must have zoned out or fallen asleep at some point because the next thing I remember was seeing Grift come back into the tent, her forelegs completely covered in blood. She set her gun down by the entrance as she had before and went straight for a washtub set up along the side of the tent, rinsing the blood off while quietly humming to herself.

"So you're the medic here?" Starry asked, her voice strained with impatience, feathers bristling.

"Medic, marksmare, infiltrator, negotiator..." Grift shrugged a little while she was getting cleaned up, "I've learned to be a lot of different things. Changing to keep up, y'know?"

Starry looked around the tent. "You're the only medic here?"

"Ah-huh."

"You take care of this whole camp alone?"

"Ah-huh."

"And there's nopony else to treat?"

"Ah-huh."

"Are you even listening to me?"

"I can hear you just fine," the unicorn said as she finished washing her hooves and grabbed a rag in her telekinesis to dry them off. "Sorry I took so long getting here but you made a mess of that poor buck's leg," she said, looking at Starry.

Starry furrowed her brow. "Excuse me?" There was a pause then it dawned on Starry, her eyes widening, "You mean to say we've been kept waiting so you could patch up that Goddesses-damned raider? And then you come in here and blame me for-"

"I never said I blame you," Grift said, cutting Starry off. Her tone was calm, disarming. "You did what you had to do to survive. There's nothing wrong with that. And believe me: I've done way worse than what you did to that buck just so that I could live on."

"Should've just left him to die," Starry snorted.

"Won't do any good to just go around shooting all the bad ponies," Grift replied in that same disarming tone, "You understand he's just doing what he needs to do to survive, don't you? It's something Trailblazer taught me: the wasteland drives everypony to do bad things so you can't really blame anypony without blaming everypony."

She made her way over to where I was and sat down in front of me. "Hi there, little bird," she said to me in a gentle voice. "My name's Grift. You remember me from before, don't you?"

I looked at her and nodded slowly.

She smiled as she picked up a damp rag in the green glow of her aura. "And can you tell me your name?"

"Day," I answered quietly.

"Just Day?" she asked as she started cleaning the gore off my face. I just closed my eyes and tried not to think about it.

"Just Day." I winced as the rag rubbed across something on the side of my head that stung.

"Oh, sorry about that, little bird. Hmm... Looks like you hit your head here. Would you go get the small medkit in the back there for me, Miss Starry? I'm afraid I'm bad at multitasking with my magic," she asked while lifting my hoof up to where she held the rag against my head. "Hold that there for me, would you?"

Starry muttered something to herself and trotted off toward the back of the tent where Grift had pointed her hoof. Meanwhile, a roll of bandages floated out of Grift's bags in her green aura and, after moving my hoof out of the way, she carefully dressed the gash on my head.

"Thank you," she said to Starry, "just set it down there for me, that'll be fine." Then, looking back to me, she asked, "It's alright if we take your barding off, isn't it? I should check you for other injuries."

I hesitated briefly but nodded and sat up to reach for the zipper but Grift grabbed it in her telekinesis and pulled it down for me. She circled around behind me as her green aura wrapped around the barding and lifted it off. I let out a pained grunt as it yanked on my injured wing but otherwise kept quiet.

There was an awkward silence until Grift finally spoke up, "What happened to you? Your back is covered in bruises."

"Huh? Oh. I fell," I answered quietly.

"You shoulda seen it," Starry chimed in. "Right through- what was it? Three? Four floors?" She stifled a laugh, continuing in a more serious tone, "Day, you shoulda said something to me if you were hurt this bad. We could've side-tracked to look for a medkit or something in the building."

I shook my head and winced as I felt that gash throb under the bandages. "It's fine. It doesn't really hurt." They were both just looking at me. "No, really. I'm fine."

There was another quiet pause then I felt the warm tingle of Grift's telekinesis wrap around my wing, undoing the bandages slowly. "And what happened to your wing?"

"I... fell. Dislocated the shoulder. Starry helped me pop it back into pla- ah!" I gasped as Grift extended my wing.

"Sorry, little bird. I just want to check that blood's flowing okay. You should be careful on it—it'll be easier to dislocate again if-"

"I know," I said, followed by another pause.

Grift gently folded my wing back against my side and wrapped it up again. "Well, normally we wouldn't use a healing potion for injuries this mild but I can make an exception for you," she said, her horn shimmering with green magic as she levitated a vial out of her bags and floated it over to me. "Just try not to fall down so much, okay, little bird? For me?"

"Thanks. I'll try," I said meekly as I took the vial in my hooves and drank the purple solution. Almost instantly I felt the ache in my head clear up; the soreness in my wing and back eased too. I pulled at the bandages around my hoof where the parasprite had bit me, seeing that it had healed up completely. I then turned back and pulled off the bandages from my hind leg where I'd shot myself. The wound there hadn't completely closed up but it felt a lot better and had stopped bleeding.

"Hmm." Grift looked at the wound there.

"Is everything alright?" Starry asked cautiously.

Grift smiled. "This Day is going to be perfect," she said with a sing-songy cadence, ruffling my already unkempt mane with her hoof. "Just keep the bandages on your head and wing for at least another day or so to be safe."

My head was feeling clearer and my wing didn't hurt so much as I put my barding back on. Though I had to agree that keeping the bandages on would be a good idea. Starry was already headed for the tent flap while I was reaching for my saddlebag when Grift spoke up again.

"I almost forgot. Is this your magnum, little bird?" she asked as she held up my gun in her telekinesis. "I found it while checking over the raiders."

"Oh. Um... yeah, I guess. I mean, I found it outside my stable..."

She turned it over in her aura a couple times, examining it. "You found it? In this good of a condition? Pretty convenient," she said, smiling as she floated it over to me.

I looked at it and sighed a bit, glancing back at the mostly-healed wound on my flank. "Not really," I muttered as I took the gun and tucked it back into my pocket. Starry had already left but instead of following after her, I decided to wait for a minute. "Um, Grift? What do you do out here?"

"Hmm?" She looked at me curiously, her head canted to one side. "You mean here in camp? Or just in general? Well," she chuckled, "I suppose the answer's the same either way. Like I said before: I know how to be a lot of different things," she said as she went about tidying up the supplies: putting away the medkit she'd asked Starry to bring over and washing the rag she'd used to clean me off. "I was a mercenary before I met Trailblazer. I leverage my old connections to help him out now. Part of my special talent," she added with a bit of a grin over her shoulder at me as she turned to put her cutie mark on display.

"A... flower? Wait... I've seen pictures of that flower. It's a- um..." I fumbled trying to remember what it was called.

"It's a heart's desire, little bird," Grift answered with a quiet chuckle. "I get what ponies want."

Reflecting on that thought for a moment, I asked, "Well.. what does Trailblazer want if you're working for him?"

Grift just laughed softly with a disarming smile. "It's not about what he wants."

Furrowing my brow in confusion, I was about to ask what that meant when Starry poked her head through the tent flap. "Day, you coming already or what?"

"Sorry, ma'am," I answered, leaving Grift to continue tidying up as I hurried to join Starry outside.

"Alright," Starry said, looking around, "now that that's taken care of, let's get out of here before we run into anypony."

While Starry trotted out ahead, I lagged behind briefly. Grift had been so nice in helping me; she even gave me a healing potion when I didn't really deserve one. I didn't want to leave without properly saying thank you.

A burly green earth pony mare nearly plowed into Starry and I forgot about Grift, instead turning my attention to Starry and the imposing mare. She had a short-cropped dark green mane with greenish-yellow streaks and she wore a thick leather barding, reinforced with metal plates over her chest, shoulders, and flanks. The whole thing was painted black except for a set of golden scales tipped heavily to one side painted on her flank.

"What the fuck. Where did you come from, pigeon? What are you doing here?" she demanded in a forceful, authoritative voice. My legs turned to jelly, shaking as I shrank back instinctively to avoid drawing attention. Her commanding tone nearly brought me to my knees. And it wasn't even directed at me!

Starry looked over the green mare and narrowed her eyes. "I was just leaving so you can fuck off."

"Oh I don't think so, you piece of Enclave trash. Think you can just waltz in here like you own everything under the sky? I asked what you're doing here. Don't make me ask again."

I started to move toward Starry, to try to talk her out of arguing with the mare but a tan-colored buck to my side stuck out his foreleg to hold me back. "I wouldn't get too close to that if I were you, li'l bird," he said. "Ya wouldn't wanna find yourself on the wrong enda Jade's temper. Best be lettin' your friend there handle herself."

Looking around as I fell back a half step, I noticed that a small handful of ponies had started gathering around to see what was going on. They were making sure to keep plenty of space between them and the two ponies at the center of their attention.

Starry and Jade were squaring off. Standing only a few paces apart, they circled back and forth slowly while both keeping their battle saddles aimed at each other. Starry's wings were flared out and her ears twitched back and forth while her eyes stayed locked on the green mare across from her.

"I don't understand," I said aloud, looking to either side of me. The tan buck had apparently moved on after cautioning me to stay back but there were a couple unicorn mares to my other side. They were both wearing barding similar in design to what Jade was wearing, even down to the tipped scales, though they had it painted on their shoulders instead of their flanks. "What's happening? Who's Jade?"

The two looked me up and down, exchanging a glance with each other before the one closer to me answered, "Only the best damn gang boss we ever had. Used to be a dozen small gangs back home. All fighting each other in turf wars. Me an' Firing Pin here," she said, nodding to her companion, "probably shot each other on a weekly basis before Jade came along and rallied us all together."

"We all stomped those lousy Eighty-Eights together. Now we follow under her banner," Firing Pin added, tapping a hoof at the tipped scales mark on her shoulder. "Jade's cutie mark—a talent for shifting the balance."

The first mare nodded. "Ever since she's been running with Trailblazer, we've been fighting raiders to protect trade routes instead of fighting each other over nothing but bombed out old buildings," she said with a proud grin. Nodding her head toward Jade, she added, "And she protects him."

It's just a misunderstanding! I realized. All I had to do was explain what was going on and we could all just get along and nopony would have to get hurt. But as I looked on at the scene—at the way Jade was staring down Starry—I knew I couldn't say anything to stop it. I'd seen that look and I knew better than to interfere when a security mare was detaining somepony.

Starry's ears twitched as she moved, matching Jade's motions step-for-step. With their battle saddles trained on each other, they danced in a slow, precarious stalemate. My eyes fixed on the green mare's saddle—two barrels nearly as large as the grenade rifle Starry carried. As close as she was to Starry, all it would take would be a single shot to-

Starry's wings flexed and both mares instantly tensed, holding perfectly still as they faced each other. Silence fell across the scene, the half-dozen or so ponies watching all took a half step back.

"Go ahead, pigeon," Jade said through clenched teeth around her trigger bit, "see how far you get before Pride puts you down."

"Pride?" I echoed quietly in confusion.

"Pride is her battle saddle," whispered a yellow unicorn who'd shown up to see what the commotion was. "Double-barreled belt-fed twelve gauge shotgun. I hear she custom makes all her rounds too—packs 'em with a mix of buckshot and rock salt. One hit from that will put anypony on the ground. I sure wouldn't want to be that Enclave bitch right now."

I had to do something. Starry wasn't backing down. She was going to get herself killed!

Cautiously, I stepped forward, my legs trembling. The couple ponies that had gathered nearby me all instantly backed away as Jade's eyes shifted to look at me. What are you doing!? I screamed inside my head. Keep your head down and don't draw attention! Just move along! It was too late to listen to my own advice of course but as that imposing mare stared down at me, I felt like I was back in the ruins with a building about to fall on top of me.

Starry saw where Jade's gaze shifted and she quickly shuffled to the side, putting herself between me and Jade. "Don't you dare," she growled around her trigger bit.

"What have we got here? Brought a friend with you, huh? How many more of you are skulking about?" Jade demanded with a stomp of her hoof. "I'm done wasting time."

"Jade!" a commanding voice called out. The mare turned in the direction the voice came from as the spectators parted to allow Trailblazer and another pony with him through. Trailblazer's companion was a unicorn buck who looked to be around my age, white with a bright blue mane. He stayed back by the ring of spectators though while Trailblazer trotted confidently out into the center with Starry and Jade. "Both of you, stand down."

"Sir," Jade addressed him. "I found this little Enclave turkey just walking about like she owns the place."

"Captain," Trailblazer stressed the word, "Starry Night—and her friend," he added with a wave of his hoof in my direction, "are our guests and have every right to come and go as they please."

The camp was silent as Jade stood there, eyes fixed on Trailblazer's. After a moment she rolled her eyes and sighed, leaning her head to the side. "Alright, fine. If you wanna invite Enclave featherbrains into camp, that's your business. It's not like they were the ones who burned off-"

"Captain Starry had nothing to do with that." There was an edge to his voice that hadn't been there before. He grit his teeth and sucked in a breath. "So unless and until she's personally done something wrong, she is welcome here. Am I clear?"

There was another quiet pause and I looked around to see that most of the spectators had slipped away, especially those who had been near the unicorn buck that showed up alongside Trailblazer. He was just standing there looking almost bored. He was leisurely inspecting a long blade he carried; the handle, wrapped in the red glow of his magic, had a tube running from it to a tank strapped across his back. He seemed to notice me looking at him, glancing up at me and flashing me a smile that somehow made my chest flutter. I looked away quickly, trying to ignore it.

"Yes, sir," the green mare said with a resigned sigh. She turned to face Starry, who had backed off towards me a couple paces. "The pigeon gets a free pass this time. I'll be watching her closely though." Jade just smirked, snorting a laugh. "Come and find me when you're done with your new marefriend, sir. We found some good stuff," she said over her shoulder as she trotted off.

"Come on, you gawking little shits," the white buck announced to the remaining stragglers who hadn't left already. "Show's over. Get your flanks outta here."

Turning to face Starry, Trailblazer sighed and shook his head. "I apologise for Jade. She... takes her job very seriously. Just gets a little overzealous sometimes. Are you alright?"

Starry looked at him crossly. "This is the company you keep? Bloodthirsty gangers?"

"Jade and I have a long history. I admit she's pretty rough around the edges and it takes a lot to earn her trust and respect but I've never met a more steadfast and loyal pony than her."

"Loyalty," Starry scoffed. "That's rich, coming from a traitor."

"Please, why don't you come with me while Jade and I discuss what she and her scouts have found. It will help to show you what we're trying to do here." Trailblazer looked past Starry at me, "Why don't you come along too, Lucky Day?"

I took a half-step back, bowing my head with my ears folded. "I'd really rather not. She's..." I bit my lip, trying not to say anything insulting.

"We can take a walk around camp together," the white buck chimed in as he moved up to stand in front of me, putting his cutie mark right in my face. I was afraid to wonder what kind of talent gets you a syringe dripping flames for a cutie mark.

I looked at Starry. Her wings were still puffed out and she was shifting about on her hooves nervously. I really didn't want to spend any more time around Jade. She was too much like- She reminded me of how Stable Security would get sometimes if you didn't get along with them. Starry was obviously struggling to get along with Trailblazer and his friends though. If she heard about what they're doing, I figured that might help.

"Um, that sounds nice," I said. "Starry, you can go with Trailblazer and I'll go with- um..."

"Rake," the unicorn buck said, looking back at me over his shoulder and flashing me that smile again.

Starry narrowed her eyes at Rake. I was getting the distinct impression that Starry really didn't like anypony in this camp. Trailblazer spoke up before she could say anything. "I assure you, Lucky Day will be safe with Rake. I don't know anypony nicer than him to look after your friend."

"I heard you got into it with a pack of raiders today," Rake said to me. "Come on. The old stallion said there was a survivor. Let's go pay him a visit." He jerked his head, motioning for me to follow as he turned to head off.

I hesitated, glancing back at Starry. She still had her wings flared and was visibly on-edge but Trailblazer was calm and patient with her. I guessed it would be okay for me to wander off for a little while, so I galloped over to catch up with Rake.

The surviving raider was being kept outside behind the medical tent. He was laying on his side on a dirty, blood-stained blanket. Some of the blood looked fresh enough to be his. And considering the bandaged stump of his left foreleg, I supposed it likely was.

He was a dark, puke-green color with a filthy orange-brown mane. Splotches of dried blood matted his coat where it wasn't covered by bandages. His whole left side had been cut up pretty badly with shrapnel from Starry's grenade.

There was a unicorn mare standing watch over the raider, holding a rifle in her magic. As we approached, Rake waved her off. She slung her weapon over her back and pulled a cigarette out of her pocket, wandering off to leave us alone with the raider.

He sat up and looked at us with a menacing glare, running his tongue along his bared teeth. He looked like he was about to lunge at us. I took a half-step back but Rake just kept walking without so much as a flinch. He stopped, looming silently over the injured raider.

I cautiously moved up alongside Rake, keeping my distance as best I could. "You're lucky to be alive, you little shit," he said to the raider in a very calm tone as if he was bored.

"Fuck off!" the raider replied, spitting in Rake's face. "Fucking kill me now if you know what's good fo-"

Rake didn't let him finish. His sword was out in a flash, the tip pressed right under the raider's chin, just hovering there in his red aura. "Listen close because I'm only saying this once: the only reason you're not dead yet is 'cuz the old stallion likes giving second chances. I'm not so generous. Die now or keep breathing, that's up to you." He raised a hoof and pressed it down on the raider's stump, making him grunt and wince in pain. "What's it gonna be?"

The raider gulped, his eyes fixed on Rake's. The raider hesitated and then Rake's sword made the tiniest push forward and the raider flinched. "Don't kill me," he pleaded, his eyes wide with pupils like pinpricks.

Rake sheathed his sword and let off the raider's stump. "Life as you knew it is over. You play by our rules now or next time you step out of line I won't be giving you time to reconsider." He didn't leave the raider room to respond, just turning on the spot and strolling away as the guard mare returned, spitting out the butt of her cigarette.

I hurried after Rake, casting a glance back over my shoulder at the raider who was just laying back down and cradling his stump of a leg. "Y-you weren't really gonna just kill him... were you?" I asked cautiously.

Rake just looked at me and smiled. It was a creepy, predatory kind of smile that made sidestep away from him a half pace. "Of course I would've. If he doesn't value his own life enough to work with us then I'm doing everypony a favor by ending him. Sometimes all it takes is to stare death in the face to make you appreciate your own life. I lit a fire inside him—got him to decide he'd rather suffer another day than give up and die."

We were continuing to wander along as he spoke, leading me to the edge of the camp atop a small hill where we stopped. Rake turned to face me, looking me up and down and grinning. "I could light a fire inside you too," he said in a low, seductive tone as he leaned in close to me whispering, "How about it, my little pony?"

My eyes went wide and I nearly tripped over my own hooves as I backed away from him. I tried to speak but only managed to stutter incoherently.

"What's the matter? Don't like stallions?" Rake winked at me, wearing that predatory smile again.

"I- no! I mean yes! I mean I-" I slumped down to the ground and buried my face under my forehooves. "Why does everypony keep saying things like that?"

Rake sat down across from me. "Shit. You really are wound up. The fuck happened to you?"

I took a couple deep breaths and sat up to face him. I met his steel-blue eyes then glanced away, folding my ears back timidly. "I killed somepony."

"Oh? Is that all?" Rake laughed. "Greatest feeling there is, isn't it?"

"What? No! I-"

"Killing, fucking, chems... All three at once..." He paused, looking off with a casually wistful smile as if recalling a fond memory. "That's all there is to live for in the wasteland."

I just stared blankly.

"Well come on, tell us about your first kill," he said with an eager smile.

I closed my eyes and shuddered. "It was horrible. There was blood... so much blood... everywhere. I wish... I wish I could take it back. I didn't mean to!"

"Then why'd you do it?"

"I had to! I had to protect-"

"I had to protect myself," he mocked. "Bleugh. Gag. Sorriest excuse for killing anypony I ever heard. You wanna hear about my first kill." Strangely, he wasn't asking me and I found myself nodding dumbly as I watched him.

"I grew up far away from here in a tower where everypony was nice and nopony ever went hungry or had to fight to survive. That's all a lie, though. A lie they all put on to make themselves feel civilized," he made air quotes with his hooves as he said that last word. "Like they're better than everypony out here—like they deserve to stay safe and keep it all to themselves." He spat on the ground, his expression hardening.

"Never knew my mother. Just my sire taking care of me. Then one day when I was just a little colt—didn't even have my cutie mark yet—he comes after me with this crazed look on his face. Maybe he was strung out on chems or maybe he was just cracked." Rake shrugged. "Maybe both. Hard to say. I can say he was horny as fuck, though. That much was plain as day."

My eyes widened as I listened. I felt a twinge of fear knotting in my chest but as Rake went on with his story, his face was calm, even peaceful.

"When he had me cornered, I did the first thing I could think to do: I rammed my horn through his neck. Hurt like fuck," he chuckled softly, idly rubbing his horn with a hoof. "After that it was all kind of a blur. I remember somepony screaming... and blood. There was a lot of blood. I think there was a fire somewhere in there too. Somehow I ended up in the wastes after that... Started running with raiders and even found my cutie mark out here."

"Y-you're a raider?"

Rake looked at me and nodded, suddenly very serious. "Killing to protect yourself will never get you anywhere. Out here, it always comes down to 'her or me' eventually. The sooner you realize that and the sooner you learn you need to pick yourself over her before she even knows it's down to that, the better off you'll be."

"You can't really mean that..."

"Oh, I do. The wasteland will swallow you whole, little pony. It swallows everypony eventually. I just plan to feed it as many others as I can before it gets to me. I'd scour the whole fucking wasteland by myself if I could. Maybe then, after we're all gone, Equestria can forget about us and move on. Until then..." He shrugged.

I blinked, staring at him in disbelief. "But... if that's what you believe-"

"It is."

"...then why are you following Trailblazer?"

Rake stood up, laughing a bit as he shook his mane out of his face and looked at me with an eerily calm smile. "He taught me something."

I was almost afraid to ask. "What..?"

Rake just smirked, turning away from me. "What indeed," he said as he strolled away, kicking aside little pebbles as he went.

He left me somewhat dumbstruck and, truth be told, a little uneasy. At the same time, though, as I watched Rake wander off, having heard what he'd been through and seeing that he wasn't just some kind of rampaging psychopath... even if he didn't seem to value life much at all... it gave me a little bit of hope that maybe I could learn to live out here.

Before he was out of sight, Rake turned to look back at me over his shoulder, seeing me watching him. He winked at me, giving his rump a little shake in my direction. I looked away immediately, blushing.

"Day," I heard Starry call me. Turning, I saw her come galloping up the hill to meet me. "There you are. I was looking for you."

"Sorry, ma'am. I was just talking with Rake. Is everything okay?"

"Everything is not okay. We're in a camp full of gangers and raiders run by a terrorist. We should get out of here while we can," she said gruffly, her wings flared out.

"I don't think they mean us any harm. I mean... Jade was kinda mean but Trailblazer seems nice and so was Grift. And Rake... well..." I bit my lip and thought about everything Rake had said to me. "He... doesn't seem so bad. He's not like those other raiders from earlier today."

Starry face-hoofed and sat down next to me. "Day, we can't trust these ponies. They might act nice but believe me: you don't see these many ponies working together without there being some kind of greater plan at work. They're up to something. It's there. I can see it."

"I still don't understand. What's wrong with Trailblazer? Why do you keep calling him a traitor?"

Sighing, Starry looked up at the dark clouds above us. "It all goes back to Rainbow Dash. She was the the head of the Ministry of Awesome back during the war."

"Ministry of Awesome?" I asked, incredulously.

Starry rolled her eyes. "It was her ministry and that's what she named it. Anyway, after the bombs fell, the pegasi cities that had survived decided to withdraw from the surface—we had to protect ourselves first. Rainbow Dash, stubborn and short-sighted as she always was, betrayed us so that she could run around and try to save Equestria all by herself. Some 'Element of Loyalty' she was, abandoning her people when they needed her most..." she muttered.

"What does this have to do with-"

"I'm getting there. See, because Rainbow Dash was such an influential pony, when she left, it caused a lot of political commotion. A lot of pegasi with high ideals and little foresight—like Rainbow herself—wanted to follow her example. Even now, nearly two-hundred years later, there are still pegasi who think we should be spending what precious and limited resources we have on trying to clean up down here. The fact is, we're not ready for that," Starry said, standing back up and stomping her hoof, her feathers ruffled. "Some ponies just won't listen, though, and are dead-set on causing trouble. So we do what we have to do to protect ourselves: we banish them to the surface."

"Is that the story they're telling these days?" We both turned to see Trailblazer calmly walking up the hill, his auburn coat shining in the crimson glow of the dying day. He wasn't wearing his battle saddle any more, just his brown coat. Despite Starry's menacing glare, he approached without any hostility or fear and sat down beside me, opposite from Starry. "I remember when I was a colt it was 'for their own good' but that seems like another lifetime after all I've been through since then," he said, looking up at the clouds.

"I'm still not sure I understand, sir. What did you do?"

Starry scoffed, "It doesn't matter what he did. He's a dashite—a traitor."

"It matters a great deal, Captain. Understanding why you disagree with somepony is the only place to start if you ever want to learn from her." Trailblazer sat there quietly, gazing upwards for a moment before turning to face me. "I disagreed with Enclave policy and practice and I spoke out against them. My only crimes were my words." He took a deep breath, sighing a little. "I was a teacher. I had a comfortable life with friends and colleagues and, most importantly, students who looked up to me. When I started speaking out publicly the Enclave did this to me." He looked back at his cutie mark: a black cloud and lightning bolt. It looked strange though... scarred.

"They branded me. Burned my cutie mark off and replaced it with this—the mark of a dashite." As he said it I was reminded of what it was like listening to Rake talk about what happened to him—there was no anger or fear or sadness in his voice, only calm acceptance. "I believed in what I was doing. I wanted to see my students grow up to have a bright future. I had to be branded a dashite to become a traitor," Trailblazer said with a mirthless chuckle.

"We trust teachers to take care of our foals and you go and fill their heads with lies and slander!" Starry hissed, scowling over at Trailblazer. "Being down here is the least you deserve."

"The only time I ever lied to my students was when I first started teaching. They gave us lists of approved subjects and told us we had to talk about them in a very specific way. They revised our history so that The Grand Pegasus Enclave was always right and always came out on top. I spoke out because I knew it was all a lie and I couldn't stand to see young minds soaking it up like it was fact," Trailblazer asserted, his voice carried a twinge of hostility I hadn't seen from him before.

"The Enclave is and always has been right!" Starry argued. "We have nothing but the utmost concern for the safety of our people in mind. It's high-minded idealists like you who go and ruin it for everypony!"

Trailblazer stood up, turning to face Starry, his eyes narrowing. "The Enclave talks about plans to save Equestria but it's been two centuries and what have they actually done? Nothing. Every time somepony tries to say something about that, they brand us and throw us down into the mud with the rest of the dirtsiders. Nothing's going to change unless we make it change."

They were practically at each others' throats and I was getting whiplash from looking back and forth between them as they argued. Worst of all, I still couldn't understand why they didn't get along. They both sounded so sure about what they were saying—Trailblazer believed what he was doing was right and Starry believed what she was doing was right. They were both talking about making life better for everypony. Why couldn't they just get along?

"Stop it, please!" I cried, clasping my hooves over my ears. "Stop! Just stop it! Please... We have to get along with each other. It's important we get along." I recited the lines from Scootaloo's message to the stable, rocking slowly as I stared down at the ground.

And they did stop. I looked up to see both Starry and Trailblazer looking at me in quiet concern. They exchanged a glance and Trailblazer sat back down, shaking his head. "I'm sorry. I got carried away. Please, Captain, don't think ill of me just because of this. I mean you well, I really do and I think we can help each other out."

Starry snorted a bit but otherwise kept quiet, looking at me rather than at Trailblazer.

"You two are more than welcome to spend the night in camp here or you can leave if you want. It's up to you," He said, standing up again and starting to walk back into the camp. "I'll see to it that there's space for you to sleep in the medical tent. It's the least I can offer you."

Trailblazer stopped to put a hoof on my shoulder as he passed. "You look like you've had it pretty rough, son. I know what it's like for a young buck like yourself to be out here all alone. You're safe here with us. I promise."

Starry stayed quiet, pulling out her flask and taking a sip as she waited for Trailblazer to get far enough away. "Well, come on, Day. We need to move quickly. It's getting dark fast and we should put as much distance between us and this place as we can."

"I want to stay here," I told her, standing up. "I know you don't like it here but I do. I'm scared out here, Starry. Everywhere I seem to go, things only get more dangerous. That raider today- I-" I shivered. "I killed somepony! And it was horrible! And I never want to do it again! And- And-" I started breathing faster, my heart was pounding. All I could think of was the bloody mess I'd left behind.

I glanced at Starry and saw this look in her eyes. I tried to turn away but she caught me anyway.

She hugged me.

I tensed up, some of my more recent bruises weren't fully healed and my wing was still sore but Starry was mindful not to pull her forelegs around me too tightly.

"I'm sorry, Day," she whispered to me. "You shouldn't have to go through these things." She let me go and I sat there, looking at her with my head bowed and my ears folded back. "We can stay for tonight. It's okay. I guess... I guess if they were going to do something to us, they'd have done it by now. It'll be safer to travel in the morning anyway."

She started heading back into the camp. "Lets go see about the arrangements they're making for us and I'll ask if they can spare some food too. Come along."

"Um... you go ahead. I think I need to just sit alone for a while." My heart was still pounding in my chest and I was feeling dizzy from trying to slow my breathing down.

Starry tilted her head, looking at me for a moment. Finally she nodded and continued off. "Come and find me when you're ready."

So that was it. That was my second day in the world outside. The stable seems so far away. I don't even want to think about it. It was like another lifetime after all I've been through since then.

And yet I can keep going. It's a strange new puzzle laid out in front of me and I have no idea what the full picture is going to be when it's done. Or even if I'll ever see it complete. All I can do is keep going and see what happens.

I have to just keep going. Accept it and move on.

Chapter 3: Misplaced

Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.

Spending the night in the medical tent wasn't the best night's sleep I'd ever had. Actually, it was pretty uncomfortable. The cot was itchy, and I kept waking up during the night for no real reason. Still, it wasn't the worst night's sleep either, and it was a far cry better than sleeping on cold, cracked asphalt in a cramped alcove. The potion Grift had given me the day before had healed a number of aches and had made it easier for me to get comfortable. So, despite everything, I was still decently well-rested when I woke up the next day.

Grift was in the tent, going through the medical supplies and packing them into several sets of saddlebags. I sat up slowly and looked over at Starry; she was still fast asleep and, again, in a rather... unbecoming position. She was sort of half-slouched across her cot on her belly, with both forelegs and one hind leg dangling off the sides. Her other hind leg tucked underneath her, propping up her rear end, while she had her cap pulled forward to cover her face.

Grift, having noticed me, trotted over and flashed a pleasant smile. "Morning, little bird," she said quietly. "Get a good night's rest?"

I nodded as I groggily rubbed the crust out of my eyes with a fetlock. "Yeah, thanks."

Grift tilted her head to the side as she looked at me, like she didn't believe me. "Everything alright, little bird?"

Everypony kept asking me that. "I'm fine," I answered her as I got to my hooves and stretched a bit, cracking my neck and back with a roll of my shoulders.

I noticed that Grift was still looking at me skeptically. "You sure you're okay?" she asked, reaching a hoof toward me.

"Of course he's fine. He would have said so if he wasn't," Rake said, as he stepped in through the tent flap. "Isn't that right, my little pony?" He flashed that predatory grin of his at me, and my wings bristled.

"I—um... Right," I said, shuffling about on my hooves a little. I hadn't been able to shake what he'd told me about himself the night before. It was a frighteningly familiar story, and I could only hope that I hadn't made a worse mistake than I already thought. Ending up like Rake... Even if he was getting along with everypony in camp, it was still an unsettling thought. The interest he'd apparently taken in me didn't really help to put me at ease either.

With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, Grift turned to go back to work packing things. "What do you want, Rake? Can't you see I'm busy?"

Rake was lazily inspecting his hoof, humming quietly to himself for a moment before responding. "Oh, I just stopped in to check up on how your preparations are coming. Everypony else is ready to go. Well, my boys are at least. I think Queen Hardass is still bitching about something or other, but she can start marching any time the old stallion gives the word." He set his hoof down and tapped it impatiently. "So what's taking you so long? Can't you just sweep up all this crap into a few saddlebags so we can head out already?"

"You know exactly what's taking so long," Grift responded, while casting glare over her shoulder at the young raider. Her horn glowed as she continued picking up items off the shelves—one at a time—in her green magic.

"You should just let a real unicorn help you out," Rake said, glancing over at me with a sly grin, and winking as his horn began to glow red. Half the tent's inventory lit up with a similar glow, but before any of it moved an inch, the lid of a mason jar, sheathed in Grift's green aura, went flying across the tent and hit right at the tip of Rake's horn. His magic imploded, and everything settled right where it was.

"Go tell Trailblazer we'll be ready to leave soon. I'll get this done a lot faster without having to clean up after you make a mess of everything."

Rubbing a hoof at his horn, Rake just smirked. "Fine, fine. Miss Persnickety." He stuck his tongue out at Grift after she turned away from him. Then he flashed that unnerving smile of his at me again before ducking out of the tent.

Grift was continuing to pack supplies away while I just stood there uncomfortably. I couldn't imagine how they could just act like that to each other. Should I say something? I wondered. But what was I supposed to say? Just some meaningless comfort? Grift didn't seem upset, but I didn't want to appear insensitive by just ignoring the whole thing. As I tried to figure out what I should do, I felt increasingly aware of how long the silence was dragging on for.

I started looking around for something, anything at all, I could ask about. I noticed Grift's rifle propped up in the corner, and something about it stuck out at me. Looking at it, I saw a puzzle where all the pieces had been re-cut to fit where they didn't belong.

"Something catch your eye, little bird?" I was startled briefly as Grift spoke up.

"I was just, um... Your gun. It... doesn't quite fit together."

She smiled and laughed quietly. "That's one way of putting it. Yeah, I've had to repair it with odd parts over the years. It serves me well, though."

There was one part in particular though, standing out from the zebra stripe patterns around it; part of the stock had been replaced with a broken piece of a wooden stock. The words "Old Pain" were carved into it. Curious, I asked her what it meant.

Grift looked at the carved stock on her rifle, and her smile faded a little. "I got it off a corpse," she said plainly, shrugging a little and returning her attention to her work.

There was something curiously familiar about that part. Staring at it more closely, I let my eyes follow the contours of the seams between parts. It wasn't really accurate to say it didn't fit together, because it did. The parts had been cut and filed, though, made to fit in a twisted mockery of a completed puzzle. Looking at that one part, I tried imagining what had come after "Old Pain" before it had been broken and reformed. It made me wonder about the other parts making up the patchwork that was her rifle. Grift had assembled quite a collection of lost puzzle pieces. What pictures had they once fit into?

Her ears perking up, Grift turned around to face me. "Is something wrong, little bird? You look... lost."

"What? No—I—I'm fine." I scuffed a hoof at the ground as I shuffled around awkwardly, forgetting my reverie. "Rake said you're going somewhere?"

Taking a few slow steps toward me, Grift nodded and smiled cheerfully. "We're making a caravan trip out to a settlement. I'm getting medical supplies packed up both for trade and in case we run into any trouble along the way." Her horn lit up, and she levitated my saddlebag over to me from among the bags she'd been working on. "I took the liberty of restocking your medkit, and I patched up the bag, too. I hope you don't mind."

I blinked a few times, unable to believe she'd simply done that for me. "I—Of course I don't mind. Thank you," I said as she set the bag down at my hooves.

Smiling and stepping a little closer, Grift gave her tangled mane a bit of a shake. "You should come along with us, little bird. It'll help to have somepony else to carry things, and we can get to know you a little better along the way. We didn't get much of a chance to talk yesterday."

Biting my lip, I took a half step back, my hind leg bumping against the edge of the cot. I looked past Grift at Starry, still sound asleep. "I don't know. I think Starry wants to keep moving the way we were headed..."

Grift glanced over her shoulder at Starry briefly before turning back to face me. "Do you trust her?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Well... yeah. Shouldn't I?" I asked, confused.

Grift bit her lip as though she wasn't sure if she should say what she was about to say. "It's just that... Enclave—pegasi in general, really—don't exactly have the best reputation out here. I mean, it's nothing against you, little bird, but as long as they keep the sky sealed off, things won't get any better."

Looking back over at Starry, I frowned. It wasn't her fault things were like they were. And it was like she'd said the night before: they had limited resources and needed to keep the cloud cover. They couldn't just open it up. I could understand that; the stable was a closed system. We—They had to keep things tightly rationed too. There was barely enough to sustain the stable's population and certainly not enough to fix the wasteland. It's all we could do to shut out the wasteland.

"You don't have to stay with her. You know that, right?" Grift suggested, looking at me with a hopeful smile.

I balked and stammered incoherently as I tried to come up with something to say to that. I mean, she wasn't wrong but... The thought had occurred to me once—the first night with Starry—and I'd dismissed it then because... where else would I go? I hadn't thought of it since then; but, now, as Grift was pointing out, I had someplace else I could stay. Still, I wasn't sure.

It was at that moment that Starry finally woke up, signaled by an unpleasant groan from her as she sat up halfway on her cot, her cap still pulled forward over her face. Grift and I were both silent, watching her as she fished around for her saddlebag, underneath her cot. She snagged one of the straps with her forehoof and pulled it up to where she could rummage through the contents until she pulled out her aspirin bottle.

With remarkably practiced ease, she opened the bottle and shook out a tablet into her hoof while simultaneously reaching her muzzle into one of the front pockets on her uniform to pull out her flask with her teeth. She closed the bottle and dropped it back into her bags, opened the flask and swallowed the pill with a short draught.

After taking a moment to just sit there, Starry took in a deep breath and put away her flask while she straightened her cap and brushed the stray hairs of her mane out of her face. She looked over at us watching her, blinked a couple times, and then looked around the tent briefly, as if she'd forgotten where she was.

"That... sure seems like a healthy breakfast," Grift deadpanned.

Starry narrowed her eyes at Grift. "Just something to clear my headache, alright? I don't need to hear—"

"I'm not judging. You don't have to get defensive about it," Grift cut her off as she moved back to resume packing supplies while Starry continued to glare, the latter's eyes following Grift. "You'll be heading off now, won't you?"

Starry got up off her cot and pulled on her battle saddle and saddlebags while mumbling something under her breath. She cleared her throat. "Yeah. Come on, Day. We have a lot of ground to cover, but we can probably make it by nightfall."

Grift glanced at me over her shoulder as Starry headed toward the tent flap.

"Um, ma'am? I... I think I wanna stay here." My ears folded back and flushed hotly, as I ducked my head, looking up at Starry.

She stopped in her tracks and turned her head to look back at me. I cringed, waiting for her to... respond.

She sat down facing me, reaching a hoof toward my chin, but stopped when I flinched away. She sighed. "I know you're scared out here, Day, but you don't know these ponies like I do. We can't stay here. It's not safe."

"Isn't it dangerous everywhere out here? Tell me there's anywhere I'll ever be as safe as—" I choked. "Tell me there's somewhere better than here. At least with these many other ponies around, I won't have to—to... kill... again." Those last words were barely above a whisper, my voice caught in my throat.

"Well..." Starry hummed quietly, considering her answer. "I guess there isn't anywhere as safe as your stable, but that doesn't mean you should stay here. It's plenty safe back at—"

"You know," Grift cut in, "you don't have to take him with you. Day's welcome with us, and it's up to him if he wants to stay. I'm sure he's really grateful for all you've done for him so far, but you don't need to keep looking out for him. He's a big pony who can stand on his own. Isn't that right, little bird? Wouldn't you like to help us with the caravan?"

Starry's ear twitched as Grift spoke, but she kept her eyes on me. I didn't know how to answer. On the one hoof, I wanted to stay where I was. There were a lot of ponies in the camp, and they all got along with each other—more or less. On the other hoof, Starry had protected me from just about the moment she had found me. Really, what I wanted was to stay here with Starry, but it was obvious she didn't fit in with these ponies, and there was no way she'd agree to—

"It's alright, Day." Starry bit her lip and sighed. "We can stay. At least for a bit longer."

Grift seemed as taken aback as I was with her acquiescence. Starry stood up and turned to face Grift with an expression somewhere between a genuine smile and a knowing smirk, as if she'd just realized that she was only a few moves away from winning a chess game.

"We ran into raiders just yesterday; there's surely more lurking about just looking for a caravan. I'd hate to leave you all without my tactical experience in case you came under attack. I'll just have to come with you to help provide security." Starry looked rather pleased with herself. "After all, it's the least I can do to repay your hospitality."

Her composure faltering ever so slightly for a brief moment, Grift put on a wide smile and nodded. "We'll be happy to have you along."

I was following Starry toward the tent flap when Grift added, "Be sure to check in with Jade. She's in charge of coordinating security. I know she'll just love to hear you're coming along." Then it was Starry's turn to falter briefly. She hesitated mid-stride but continued on without saying anything else.

We left the medical tent to see that ponies were busy packing up half the encampment. A few of the ones wearing armored barding with Jade's tipped scales on it gave Starry cross looks, but nopony said or did anything else and stayed out of the way. Starry held her head high and carried herself with the sort of confident stride that Security would have inside the stable. Everypony always got along with Security; and, likewise, nopony was bothering Starry.

Trailblazer was easy to find in the midst of the organized chaos of the camp. He was about the only pony standing in one spot. Jade was by his side, and the two of them were constantly taking reports and giving out orders to keep preparations moving. There was an almost mechanical beauty to the way he was running things. It reminded me of taking the access panel off an air conditioner unit and watching the parts at work. Every piece in its place, doing what it was supposed to do, being where it belonged.

Trailblazer saw us approaching and trotted out to meet us with a bright smile. "Captain. Lucky Day," he said with a nod to each of us. "I'm glad to see you both."

Jade stayed where she was, but I caught a sidelong glance of hers directed toward Starry. She was kept busy taking charge of coordination efforts while Trailblazer came to talk to us.

With a polite smile, Starry informed him of our decision to stay and help with the caravan. Trailblazer's face lit up so much at the news, it was like watching the magic lighting panels above the atrium come on to full daylight intensity; it was a brightness I'd yet to see in the wasteland under the constant, looming cloud cover.

Having overheard us, Jade stomped over immediately, leaving a rather confused young buck behind. "Absolutely not, sir," she said with a stern glare at Starry. "She's Enclave. The pigeon could be luring us into a trap or—" she leaned in to whisper the rest of her objection to Trailblazer. His smile faded somewhat, his eyes downcast as he considered whatever it was she told him. Starry just stood there, holding a forced grin under Jade's scrutiny.

Trailblazer looked up at Starry, tilting his head to the side; then he looked over at me. My ears folded back a little, and I lowered my head as I looked back at him. I could see the corners of his lips trembling as if they were unsure whether they wanted to pull up into a smile or droop in a frown. His eyes, though, sparkled in the day's early light. "I appreciate your prudence, Jade, but I believe we can trust these weary travelers."

Jade snorted in derision but didn't argue, stomping her way back to the patient buck and his report.

"I'm so glad that you'll be accompanying us," Trailblazer said. "It'll give us more of a chance to get to know each other. Perhaps, Captain, I can show you that I have only the best of intentions."

"All the good intentions in the world won't solve our problems." Starry let her cheerful facade drop. "But I guess I can at least give you a chance."

***

Once everything was ready, a good three quarters of the camp—a few dozen ponies or so—headed west into the barren, dusty hills of the wasteland. Several ponies were tasked with pulling carts loaded down with supplies; others carried their share of the load in saddlebags. We proceeded in a column with a loose formation; Jade's gangers wandered patrols along the sides of the caravan while a handful of Rake's raiders scouted the path ahead, reporting back at regular intervals.

I was travelling near the center of the caravan with Starry, while Jade was trying to sort out what to do with her. It wasn't exactly going very smoothly, though, since it was just the two of them; Trailblazer had stayed behind at the camp, saying he had some things to deal with there, but would catch up to us later.

"Never worked a security detail before!" Jade's voice boomed. I think I could actually see the veins in her neck throbbing. "You mean not only do I have to keep my eye on you, but I have to hold your fucking hoof the whole time too? What the fuck kind of useless soldier are you?"

Starry held her ground and kept her head high while the green mare stared her down. Her brow furrowed; she responded calmly but with a notable strain to her voice, "I'm an officer and an engineer, not a frontline soldier."

"An engineer? So... what? You build bridges? The fuck do pigeons need bridges for?"

"I specialize in demolitions, mostly: collapsing buildings—empty buildings—for salvage." Starry bit her lip and took out her flask for a sip.

Jade rolled her eyes. "Wonderful. You look like exactly the kind of pony I want handling that shit. What the fuck are you even doing down here anyway? Get tired of all the sunshine and rainbows you keep to yourself, or you just curious to see who you're pissing on all the time?"

Wings bristling, Starry ground her teeth, but kept quiet.

"Well? Aren't you gonna fucking answer me?" Jade stomped her hoof.

"Ladies, please." Both Starry and Jade turned to face Grift as she cantered up to meet them, having appeared out of the crowd of ponies in the background. "Let's not make this a repeat of yesterday's little showdown, shall we?" She glanced at each of them, holding eye contact just long enough to get a quiet nod from them both. "Jade, Trailblazer said she's welcome here. You of, all ponies, should trust his judgement."

Jade snorted. "I trust him, not the pigeon."

Starry opened her mouth to say something, but Grift cut her off. "And Captain, we've all just gotten off on the wrong foot with you. You're out of your element here; of course you're going to get defensive. We can understand that, can't we, Jade?" She cast a glance back at the gang leader who just stood there silently, giving only the slightest of nods after a moment. "So why don't we try and set things right. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?" This time it was Starry's turn to give a reluctant nod.

"Good. We're all reasonable ponies after all, aren't we?" Grift continued, ignoring Jade's derisive grunt. "So, Jade, why don't you take Starry on a patrol around the caravan just to show her the route? I'm sure she has enough combat experience to figure out what to do if something goes wrong. Don't you, Captain?"

Starry smirked. "I can handle myself just fine."

Unimpressed, Jade rolled her eyes and sighed. "Whatever. Let's just get this over with. Your lost puppy tagging along too?" She turned her head to look back at me.

"Day's—"

"I can stay here with Day and keep him company," Grift said cheerfully, interrupting Starry. "That's not a problem with you, is it, little bird?"

I shook my head. "It's not a problem." Catching a concerned look from Starry, I forced a wide grin for her. "It's alright, ma'am. I'll be okay here."

Clearly growing impatient, Jade started ushering Starry away. Soon I was left alone with Grift in the midst of the caravan. She paced alongside me and flashed me a smile.

"Hello again, little bird."

"Um, hi, Grift," I said meekly. "How are you?"

She shrugged a little and adjusted her rifle, Old Pain, across her shoulders. "I'm fine. How about you, little bird?"

"I'm fine."

She chuckled quietly. "Everyone's always fine, aren't they?" Sighing, Grift looked up at that boundless cloud cover. "It's hard sometimes, keeping up appearances. You know what I mean, don't you, little bird?" She turned to me with a piercing gaze. "Every pony around you has to see you look and act a certain way. You have to convince them that everything is perfectly normal."

My ears folded back and I bowed my head a little. I couldn't take my eyes away from hers, though. She held me locked in her stare, and it was all I could do to give a simple little nod.

"They need you to convince them," she went on, "and so you do everything you can to show them what they want to see. Eventually, you might even start to act like that without having to think about it." She paused, looking off into the distance. No longer trapped in her eyes, I lowered my gaze and cautiously edged myself away from her. "Somewhere, though, deep inside you, you know it's all a lie. Keep it up long enough and the lines separating truth from fantasy start to vanish, and everything just becomes an honest lie."

Grift turned to look at me again; and, instantly, my eyes were drawn back to hers. My mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out.

She let out a small, mirthless chuckle. "You have to be careful about which masks you wear. You might not always be able to take them off. You know, little bird?"

My jaw trembled as I struggled to come up with a response. Grift's eyes were like candle flames dancing in the darkness, holding my attention captive. A sound caught my ear, making it twitch. It sounded like a voice, but all I heard was noise. Suddenly, my eyes were broken away from that mesmerizing stare by a pony sidling up to me and bumping my flank with his own. The contact made me jump a bit, and I turned my head to see Rake cantering alongside me.

"Helloooo? Anypony in there?" He waved a hoof in front of my face.

Shaking the stupor out of my head, I stammered, "I—Sorry, I didn't notice you. I was just talking with—" I looked back to my other side, but Grift was gone.

"Okay, you're definitely losing it all by yourself here."

"No. But she was just—"

"And I don't blame you." Rake yawned. "This caravan business is boring as fuck. Well... that's actually pretty exciting. Hmm... Boring as shit, then? Whatever. Point is: I'm bored; you're bored. Let's go have some fun." He put on a wry grin and winked at me.

"I, um, well... That is—" I cleared my throat. "What are you... suggesting?" I asked, stepping off to the side a bit to put some space between us.

Rake danced around me in a quarter circle to look at me directly while walking backwards. "That would spoil all the fun. C'mon, my little pony, don't you wanna live a little?"

Biting my lip, I thought better of his offer. "I should wait for Starry to come back from patrol."

"Booooooriiing!" He circled around to my side, seeming to glide on his hooves with an effortless grace, and again bumped his flank against mine. "I've got something I wanna show you. It won't take long, I promise. Well... unless you want it to." He winked again.

Flustered, I could only stammer incoherently as I edged away from him again. Watching me, Rake laughed. "Shit, you are too easy. Look, just come for a walk with me. There's a place nearby here I wanna go visit. Just a little detour and we can can catch back up to the caravan afterwards. We'll be back before anypony misses us."

My ears folded back timidly. I suddenly felt so out of place in that moment. Since Grift had vanished, and since I had no idea when Starry or Trailblazer would be back, if Rake left without me, I'd be all by myself—alone in the middle of the caravan.

"Alright," I acquiesced. "Lead the way."

***

What Rake wanted to show me was nothing like what I might have suspected it to be, and I had to admit that, as we were approaching it, I felt somewhat glad to be there, just for the privilege of seeing it.

It was a small village, nestled into the lowlands between the rolling hills. It was the first time I'd seen a picture of civilization outside the vault that was that complete. It was missing a vital piece, though, I realized as I slowly trotted into town alongside Rake, who was watching me—most likely the expression of wonder on my face—as I looked around. There was nopony living there.

The ruined city where I had met Starry was little more than skeletal remains of the creature it had once been. Mum's Diner had a small community living around it, or at least, that's what I'd been lead to believe, but that had seemed to be a meager, sickly little beast. This settlement was like a fresh carcass; everything was still there, but the life had gone out of it.

The buildings looked to have been of pre-war construction, but had fallen into disrepair over the centuries. Paint was faded and worn off in places, exposing bare wood or mottled red and gray masonry. Most windows were broken; some had been boarded up, but it seemed that supplies for maintenance had been scarce, as I could see repairs had been made only where absolutely vital to keep the houses standing. Even then, I recognized the myriad bones, borrowed from the houses in more advanced stages of collapse, grafted onto the sturdier houses to keep them whole.

Old, dead trees littered the yards around the houses. Dry, bleached wood skeletons that made my heart sink at the thought that I'd likely never see another live tree like the ones I used to sit under in the stable. Passing nearby to one such dead tree, I looked up into its boughs and saw a small bird's nest, empty and forgotten like the rest of the town.

My vision became filled with a white flank emblazoned with a flame-dripping syringe as I crashed into Rake's hindquarters. "Watch where you're going," he said crossly. "That is, unless that's where you were planning to go," he added in a sultry tone with a wry grin, flicking his tail in my face.

I stumbled back a few steps, stuttering as I felt my face flush hotly. "I—That's not—I wasn't—You—" I saw him looking at me, barely holding back his laughter. I sighed. "Sorry."

"You apologize too much," he said, turning to face me. "You think running face-first into somepony's flank is the worst thing you can do to him?"

My ears folded back as I felt the blush spread to them. I opened my mouth to say I was sorry, but stopped myself, instead just averting my eyes and staying silent, only looking back when I heard Rake's hoofsteps moving on without me.

Without even bothering to wait for me to catch up as I cantered after him, Rake hopped over a broken picket fence and trotted up to the door of the house it surrounded. Opening it as casually as he'd open the door to his own home, he stood to the side and waved a hoof, inviting me in.

Hesitating briefly at the fence's gate, which had fallen off its hinges long before we'd arrived there, I cast a glance back down the road. "Shouldn't we be heading back already?"

Rolling his eyes, Rake heaved a sigh and tapped his hoof impatiently. "Just get your ass over here already, and stop whining."

"I—I'm not whining," I protested, trotting up to meet him. "I'm just... worried we've been gone too long." Rake just shook his head and ushered me inside, following along after me.

As we entered the house, my eyes were almost immediately drawn to a strange message painted on the wall in large, bold letters:

Why do you dance with flames, little moth?

Are you already so hungry for another tragedy?

-Janus

Stopping, I just stared at it silently while Rake, having walked right past it at first, doubled back to stand beside me. "Some fucked up shit, huh? I think I remember seeing that the last time I was here."

I reached out a hoof and lightly traced over the graffiti. The dark, sanguine paint was cracked and flaking. Layers of dirt and splattered grime had built up on top of it. It had been there for years, decades perhaps. As I looked closer at the wall, I realized that it didn't match the other walls in the room; it was as if somepony had tried to paint over it at some point. The dark lettering had bled through the muddy yellow paint they had used, defying the attempt at hiding it.

A chill ran along my spine, and my wings bristled as I stepped back from the wall, my eyes fixed on it. "I think we should go. I don't like it here."

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Rake moved up in front of me, staring me down with eyes blazing. "We just got here, and you're pissing yourself over a fucking wall?"

"I—It's not—Well, see—" I stammered.

Rolling his eyes, Rake let out an exasperated sigh. "Come on! Out with it already!"

"I have a bad feeling about this place, okay?" I shuffled about nervously on my hooves. "I wanna go back to the caravan where it's safe."

"Safe?" Rake's face softened, and he started laughing. "Shit, you think it's any safer back there? Oh, that's a good one. I heard you stable ponies were naive; but, fuck, you gotta be setting some kinda record with that one."

I frowned, standing up straight to face Rake. "It makes sense that a guarded caravan like that would be safer than being out here on our own. I can see that much."

He stopped laughing and narrowed his eyes at me, his head cocked to one side. "Why do you think a caravan needs that much protection, huh? It's a big fucking target is why. Out here, you and me? We're nothing. You're fucking lucky you got friends like me or you wouldn't last a day out here, brother."

My feathers bristled, my good wing flaring out as I yelled at him, "You are not my brother!"

"Oh-ho! Looks like you've got some bite in you after all, little pony." He grinned at me with that predatory flicker in his eyes. "Come on, let me see the fire that burns inside you. I know it's in there."

I backed away from him, my wing drooping by my side. "I—Sorry," I said meekly, bowing my head. "I didn't mean to—"

Rake just snorted and rolled his eyes. "Ugh. You are sorry. Just like every pony from this shithole town was."

Puzzle pieces fell into place at that moment. My eyes were drawn back to the message on the wall. "You've been here before." I felt a tremble in the pit of my stomach. "What... What were you doing here?"

There was that smile of his again, the one that made my chest feel tight and my legs tingle, as he danced around me in a slow circle. "Ooh, fun memories, those. I told you before: killing, fucking, and chems are the best things to live for out here. Me and the boys I was running with back then did a lot of living in this little town."

My face went cold as I felt the blood drain from it. The very thought alone made me taste bile in the back of my throat. The pieces missing from this town hadn't been lost; they'd been cut out. I stared at Rake, almost in a daze. "You..."

He let out a hearty laugh. "He finally gets it! Oh, the look on your face: priceless!"

"But... there were ponies living here! They—They had families and friends, and they were just getting along with each other!"

Again, he laughed, continuing to glide around on his hooves in front of me. "Getting along? Let me tell you something: I got to see who ponies really were—when their lives are threatened, they'll show you how well they really 'get along.'" He stepped closer to me, looking right into my eyes. "You've seen it in yourself already, haven't you?"

"I didn't want to!" I screamed at him.

"Oh, shut up. If you really didn't want to, you wouldn't have done it."

"I didn't—"

My head jerked to the side, a sudden ringing in my ear dominating my senses for the moment. I tasted blood in my mouth from a split in the corner of my lip. It didn't hurt—at least, not right away—where Rake's hoof had struck me. It was more like a warm tingle at first that faded to a slow throb as I turned back to face him.

"Shut the fuck up," he said in a hushed, even tone.

The throbbing in the side of my face got stronger as I felt my heart start to race. Rake was saying something, but I didn't hear it as I ran past him and out into the wasteland.

I ran. Leaping over broken fences and cutting through back yards, I didn't even know where I was going. I just ran, hoping to catch up with the caravan, but only because it was the nearest, safest place I knew of. What I really wanted in that moment was to go home. I wanted to bang on the stable door, begging and screaming to be let back in. I'd be a good pony. I'd get along just like I always had.

My hoof caught on something, and I tumbled face-first into the ground, bringing me to a halt. Picking myself back up, I glanced back to see what had tripped me: It was a small scooter, half buried in the loose dirt where some long-gone foal had abandoned it. Then, in that brief moment of rest, I had calmed down enough to take notice of the red bars around the edges of my E.F.S. compass. Turning to face them, I was confronted with a gang of earth ponies. Each were clad in piecemeal outfits and adorned with rusted scraps of jagged metal and lengths of barbed wire; their manes and coats were tangled and matted with dark, bloody stains. They stared at me with wide, hungry smiles as they spread out to encircle me.

Before they could completely surround me, I turned and ran back into the town. My heart was pounding inside my chest, and I struggled to breathe as my lungs burned with rapidly growing exhaustion. A glance to either side of me revealed that the raiders had rapidly gained on me. They weren't overtaking me though, only pacing me. Several spread out to go the long ways around buildings, but, Goddesses, I could still catch glimpses of them keeping up as I crossed streets and alleys. I would have taken to the air to try and escape, but my wing was still bandaged, and though I was more than willing to risk further injury by taking flight, I simply didn't have time to unwrap it.

"Help!" I cried out between gasps for breath. "Rake! Somepony!"

I came around one house and skidded to a halt as two raiders closed in front of me. Nimbly, I kicked off the dirt road and launched myself off to the right, only to stop again in the face of another raider. "Nowhere left to run now, little pony," she laughed at me. Her face contorted into a wicked grin as she took up the trigger bit of her battle saddle.

Ducking to the side, I narrowly dodged her shot; I felt, more than heard, the whizz of the bullet pass by my already jagged ear. Other raiders rapidly filled into the street, blocking it off as they closed in on me slowly with gleeful, manic stares. Both time and options in alarmingly short supply, I turned and ran in the only direction I could: through the open doorway of the house behind me, kicking the door shut behind me. As it slammed, I heard a handful of shots fire off, followed by a muffled yell: "Hey! This one's mine! Get your own!"

The house opened into a narrow hallway with closed doors to either side and a stairway leading up. Without pausing to consider, I ran up the stairs and turned to the left, my hooves skidding on the hardwood floor. The hall greeted me with a row of doors, and I stopped to try the first one—only to find it locked.

A loud smash echoed up the stairs as the door downstairs was kicked in, followed by hoofsteps coming up to find me. My heart raced, and I ran further down the hallway to the door at the end, again, finding it locked. In panic and frustration, I rounded on my forehooves and kicked at the door with both hind legs. The door gave way, but I lost my balance and slipped, collapsing onto my belly. Scrambling back to my hooves just in time to see the raider standing over me, I took a powerful kick square in the chest and went sailing into the open room, coughing and gasping for breath as I skidded across the floor.

Stout, filthy, with a dozen ampules of some vermillion liquid sown into his bandoleer, the earth pony stared me down, a length of rusty chain clutched firmly in his yellow teeth. By fright alone, I managed to break free of his ravenous gaze and scramble away from the clawed end of his chain as it lashed forward in an overhead arc, gouging a deep rent in the wood floor.

My back firmly against the wall, I could do nothing but watch as he ­reared up. His eyes, boiling with intent, met mine, and the blood drained from my face, leaving my lips cold and tingling. Fleeing from that ferocious gaze, my eyes darted around, desperate for something—anything, but kept being drawn back to him: The chain in his foul, rotten teeth, the coiled hind legs carrying his massive, yet lean bulk, the flank bearing his cutie mark: a twisted and barbed chain, much like the one he was wielding. My eyes rose back up to meet his again, forcing me to watch, trembling, as his lips twisted back in a menacing sneer around his chain. He whipped it back, readying for another strike.

Two bloodied teeth flew through the air, snapping me out of the trance. Rake stood in the doorway, hooked end of the chain steady in his crimson magic's hold. The other end lay on the floor next to the raider, who was now drooling blood.

"Over here, big guy." His voice a molten syrup, Rake stepped toward his enemy.

An almost audible snap of rage took hold of the raider's body. With a primal bellow, he turned and leaped at Rake in what was an ultimately futile maneuver. As if guiding his partner in a dance, the unicorn sidestepped the surge, levitating the attacker's own weapon to wrap around his neck. One fleeting sword strike severed tendons on the raider's hind leg, denying him purchase. Despite this, the earth pony fought. Defying looming death, he held himself alive, his forelegs pulling against the chain with all the might he could muster.

A cat playing with a mouse, Rake caught his prey's eyes with his own icy stare. Certain of having the raider's undivided attention, he looped the hooked end of the chain over a beam above, lifting the raider by his neck until his hind hooves barely touched the floor, a pendulum of inevitable death, waiting.

Strength and accompanying madness rushed off the raider's body; he started slumping, diving hurriedly toward oblivion, but the unicorn saw through it all… He drove the hook through the hanged pony's lower jaw, securing tortured with torture.

"Stop it!" I cried, my voice finally having found its way out.

And he did. Casting a sidelong glance at me, Rake circled around the hanging raider. Careful, fluid steps of a macabre waltz brought him around his toy—his prey—to look at me directly. Stars align, he was smiling. "Stop what, my little pony?" he asked casually while the raider gasped and choked for breath behind him.

My mouth fell open, but my voice was once again lost. I could only watch as the raider, struggling and still clinging desperately to life, slowly hanged to death.

Rake followed my gaze and grinned. "You like to watch ponies suffer, huh? Stick with me; you'll see plenty of it." Turning, he reared up and put his forehooves on the raider's shoulders. "Shh," he hushed. "It'll all be over soon," he cooed softly, nuzzling behind the raider's ear. Levitating his sword up overhead, he plunged it down through the side of the raider's neck, all the way to its hilt. A sudden jolt brought stillness to the raider, and the sword lifted out, dripping with blood. "Just go to sleep." The room fell deathly quiet.

Dropping back down to all fours, he wiped his sword off on the lifeless pony's flank then cut the raider's bandoleer off and levitated it into his saddlebag. With barely a glance back in my direction, he jerked his head for me to follow. I fought down the urge to retch, tasting bile in the back of my throat, as I shakily got to my hooves to follow after Rake.

The sounds of gunfire outside drew my attention to the window—one of only a scant few still intact in the town—and I trotted over to look out. Down on the street below was Starry. Her grenade launcher fired off rapidly as she drove back the few remaining raiders who weren't laying lifeless in the blood-stained dirt.

A few figures came galloping down the road behind Starry, and, my heart leaping up into my throat, I reared up to bang on the window to get her attention, to warn her. She didn't notice, but my concern was apparently not needed as those figures came closer and I saw the tipped scales painted on their armor.

Leaning against the window, I watched as Starry fell back to meet the gangers. She landed in front of them and made several gestures down the road in the direction the raiders had scattered under her assault. The gangers all nodded and ran off in pursuit.

It was then that I realized I was leaning far more forward than I should have been. Before I could back off from the window, however, it fell out of its frame. Without it supporting me, I went with it, tumbling head over heels out of the second story window—an experience I was repeating far too often—and crashed onto the ground below.

Looking up, coughing and gasping with the wind knocked out of me, I saw Starry standing over me, frowning. I rolled to my side and slowly climbed back onto my hooves with a pained grunt. My back ached from the fall, but I'd thankfully managed not to break or dislocate anything that time. "S-sorry," I wheezed. "Sorry, ma'am. I—I didn't mean to get into trouble. I was just—"

"Day," Starry interrupted me. "It's alright," she said, her face brightening as she smiled gently. "I'm just glad you're okay."

Still feeling winded—both from the fall and from all the terrified running—I simply smiled back, forcing a dry laugh.

Starry furrowed her brow. "What happened to you?" She reached toward my face, where Rake had hit me, and I flinched away. "Did one of the raiders get to you?"

"I—No. It's fine. He didn't mean to."

"Who—" Starry blinked then scowled. "Did Rake do this to you?"

I shook my head. "I told you; it's fine. Just don't worry about it, okay? I don't want to make trouble. I just wanna get along with everypony."

She narrowed her eyes and turned to look over her shoulder at where Rake was busy picking through the dead raiders' meager belongings. "Oh, he's making his own trouble. We'll see how far Trailblazer wants to keep trusting his 'reformed' raider after he hears about this," she said smugly.

"No! Please, ma'am!" She turned back to face me, her eyes wide in surprise. "It wasn't his fault. I—I made him do it. He—he probably heard the raiders coming, but I kept talking and making noise. He was trying to tell me to be quiet, but I wasn't listening. It was my fault. He had to hit me."

Starry looked at me incredulously. She didn't say anything, though; she just glanced back over her shoulder at Rake.

"Don't make a big deal out of this, ma'am," I pleaded, my head bowed and ears folded back. "We can all just get along and it'll be fine. Everypony's fine." I looked up at Starry and forced a wide grin to convince her. My swollen cheek and split lip complained at the expression, and I tasted blood, but I held the smile for her. She just needed me to show her that everything was perfectly normal. That's all.

Sighing, Starry gave a small nod and motioned for me to come along as she started back toward the road that would lead us back to the caravan. My smile relaxed to where my lip wasn't stretched to the point of stinging, but the corners of my mouth were still turned up—Starry really was making the effort to be nice. For the first time since leaving the stable, I finally felt like I could recover some sense of normalcy in my life. I trotted along happily at that thought.

Then I stopped, realizing that Starry wasn't beside me anymore.

Turning, I saw that Starry had fallen behind. She had stopped by a building with a large hole in one wall and was staring at something in the room beyond, her wings drooped.

"Starry?" I called to her.

Ignoring me, she slowly stepped inside the building. I cantered back to her and looked in through the collapsed wall. The inside had an overturned wardrobe, a smashed dresser, and other scattered debris littered around. A filthy mattress lay on the floor in the corner; beside it, where Starry's attention was focused, was a cradle. Tipped over onto its side, several of its wooden slats were broken, but the moldy rags inside were still folded neatly, waiting for somepony—waiting for a final piece to complete the picture.

"Starry?" I approached slowly, sitting down beside her. I raised a hoof to her shoulder, but hesitated, letting it fall without touching her.

"Do you have any kids?" I asked quietly.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I never had time for that. Besides, there's enough overcrowding in the Enclave already and..." She sighed without finishing.

We sat together quietly for a long moment before Starry broke the silence. "One of the first things that struck me about being down here—" Her voice choked. "Was how everypony down here has to make their lives wherever they can find the space." She brought out her flask, hooves shaking, and took a long draught. "It's all so fragile... So easy to snuff out..." She turned her head to face me with tired, sunken eyes. "I won't let that happen to you, Day. I promise."

Chapter 4: Tergiversation

Somewhere, a puzzle piece is searching for its picture.

The walk back to the caravan was quiet. Starry hadn't said anything since leaving that abandoned town with its broken homes and empty cradles. We trotted along at a slow, steady pace, just the two of us. I'd told Rake and the others to go on ahead. Rake hadn't bothered waiting around, and we lost sight of him quickly, but the gang ponies Starry had brought with her stayed within sight ahead of us.

We stopped briefly along the way so Starry could get the aspirin bottle out of her bags. After shaking out one of the small white tablets into her hoof, she swallowed it down with a long sip from her flask, which she'd already had out; she'd been nursing from it for the entire walk up until then. With her eyes closed, she took a deep breath through her nose and let it out in a long, quiet sigh. When she opened her eyes, they sparkled with the kind of brilliance and determination I'd come to expect from her; the kind I watched go dark when she'd spoken about how fragile life in the wasteland was.

Her ears perking up suddenly, Starry swiftly put her flask and aspirin bottle away. She reared up on her hind legs, wings fanned out for balance, as she looked on ahead of us. Following her gaze, I saw the gang ponies galloping off in a hurry. After a moment, I started hearing what I assume Starry had heard: distant gunshots.

They came in short bursts of two or three, separated by several seconds of silence. Starry took off and flew up to the hillcrest ahead of us. I followed at a rapid pace by hoof, catching up to her to see the caravan on the road below. It was no longer the orderly column that it had been of trader wagons and security forces trotting steadily forward. Instead, we saw a chaotic mass of ponies holding position. Many of the wagons had been drawn up alongside each other, forming a wall that ran along the left side of the caravan. By the far corner, up near the front of the caravan, was where the sounds of gunfire were coming from; gang ponies barricaded behind upturned wagons—some of which were even on fire or showed signs of recent fire damage—were trading shots with a handful of ponies who looked much the same as the raiders I'd run into earlier.

"What . . ." I said breathlessly.

"Raiders attacked the caravan," Starry said. "When I saw that you were gone, I asked some of the guards to come with me to go look for you." She let out a calm sigh. "Looks like the raiders are retreating. Those gang ponies sure know how to fight, that's for sure."

I turned and looked back the way we'd came. That far away, the abandoned town was barely distinguishable from the rocky hills it was built atop. "How did you know where to look?"

Starry gave a wry smile and brushed a few stray hairs under her cap. "I told you: my talent is finding things." She let out a small laugh, then turned to look back in the direction the caravan had come from—toward where we'd been headed before we met Trailblazer. "We could just leave . . . are you sure you still want to go this way, Day?"

"I—you mean just . . . abandon Trailblazer and his friends?"

"I wouldn't say 'abandon' . . . I mean, we barely know them, and see: they do just fine without us. It's the way things are, Day; why the Enclave doesn't just come down and fix all this—we've got enough of our own problems without worrying about everypony else."

"Well . . . where—"

"Captain!" A voice drew our attention skyward as Trailblazer swooped in for a landing. He was wearing his battle saddle, which seemed to carry the faint scent of ozone. "Captain, I think you should come with me. We need to have a discussion."

Glancing down at his weapon, Starry raised an eyebrow. "Are you threatening me?"

Trailblazer's eyes went wide at the suggestion. His face flushed lightly, and he turned to the side. "Nothing of the sort, Captain. But it is somewhat urgent, if you don't mind."

Starry rolled her eyes and grunted. "I guess we're hanging around a while longer," she muttered.

Seeming to notice me almost as an afterthought, Trailblazer looked at me. "Oh, Lucky Day. There you are. I'm glad you survived the attack alright. Though . . ." He tilted his head. "Not unscathed, it seems." At my confused look, he pointed a hoof at his cheek. I hesitantly mirrored the motion and winced as I felt the swollen bruise from where Rake had hit me. "What happened?"

"I, um, fell out a window," I answered.

"Well, nothing too serious, but you should let Grift take a look at it for you. Come along, I'll show you where you can find her while the captain and I go have that discussion," he said with a gentle smile as he turned to canter off back toward the caravan while Starry and I followed.

***

Grift had set up a temporary triage center to deal with casualties from the raider attack. When Trailblazer and Starry left me with her, she'd apparently already finished treating everypony else and was busy getting her things packed up again.

She came out to meet us as we approached and cheerfully took charge of me, letting Starry and Trailblazer continue on without me.

Grift's hoof came up quickly in the periphery of my vision. Reflexively, I ducked away from it. "Easy now, little bird," she said quietly with a smile as she put her hoof under my chin, turning my head so she could get a better look at my cheek. "You've got quite a bruise there. Had a close encounter with a raider, did you?"

Suddenly aware of the dull, throbbing ache on the side of my face, I winced. "Oh. Um . . . yeah. Rake . . . saved me . . ." I answered meekly as she led me back to where she'd left her supplies.

"You should be more careful," Grift said in a soft tone while she poured a little bit of a healing potion into a cloth rag. "The wasteland is full of monsters, little bird." She reached toward my face with that rag in her hoof. I held still as she dabbed at my cheek; the healing potion felt warm and tingly as it eased the swelling and repaired my split lip.

"There are the big monsters:" Grift continued, "the ones that'll rip you to pieces. They're easy enough to spot, so you can stay away from them. But then there are the truly terrifying ones: monsters who look just like normal ponies; like me and you." She leaned in toward me. "They'll get close to you, whisper sweet nothings in your ear, and use you—feed off you until all that's left is an empty husk."

Grift leaned back, pulling the cloth away from my cheek. She smiled cheerfully. "All better, little bird." Her head tilted to the side as she considered my baffled expression. "Don't let what I said about monsters scare you, little bird. You've got friends who will help fight them." Her voice lowered into a whisper. "You're a special little bird. We're happy to give you a place to belong here."

I blinked at her. "Belong . . . here?"

She smiled, tossing her tangled mane back with a shake of her head. "Of course. You need someplace to stay, something to do out here, don't you, little bird? We could find you someplace where you wouldn't have to be near the fighting. With some training and experience, you could make a fine field medic, don't you think?" Grift began packing up her supplies as she spoke. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd like to help ponies like Trailblazer and the rest of us?"

I had to admit, she had a point: I did need to find something to do with my new life. It was an alien thought to me. Inside the stable, I'd gone into maintenance because it's what I was good at. Everypony had a place to fit into the puzzle there. It was simple. Out here, though, the world was wide open. Conceivably, I could do anything I wanted.

So what did I want?

"What about Starry?" I asked.

"What about her?" Grift echoed as she levitated her saddlebags onto her back, then Old Pain across her shoulders.

"Well, she doesn't really seem to be . . . y'know . . . welcome here . . ." I rubbed a hoof at the back of my neck. "And I think she has somewhere else she wants to go . . ."

Grift sat down, facing me, and making me flinch as she put a hoof on my shoulder. "Starry can go wherever she wants. You don't need to keep tagging along with her, little bird."

"I . . . guess that's true . . ." I bit my lip.

As she stood back up, Grift smiled at me. "Why don't you go talk to Trailblazer for a while. If any pony can convince you to stay with us, it's him."

Except it was easy to stay; I spent my whole life staying. It was leaving I worried about.

***

I left Grift to go find Starry and Trailblazer. It wasn't very far before I could hear Starry shouting. I couldn't make out what she was saying, though, because Jade's own voice boomed alongside her. Stepping up my pace to a gallop, I arrived to find the two mares yelling at each other. The gang ponies who had come with Starry to find me were standing still in a row behind Jade while Trailblazer stood off to the side. His eyes drifted back and forth between Starry and Jade, looking attentive, but not necessarily concerned; like he were waiting to see how things would play out between the two.

I approached Trailblazer cautiously. "What's happening, sir?"

He leaned his head to the side toward me, keeping his eyes and ears focused on the argument as he spoke in a hushed voice, "Jade has judged those three as deserters for leaving with Starry without her permission. She was going to have them whipped, but I thought that, given the circumstances, the captain might want to say something on their behalf."

"Whipped? Is that . . . normal?"

Trailblazer nodded slightly. "Jade has always run her gang with an iron hoof, and as much as I've taught her about less barbaric ways of keeping order, I think she knows that her gang is only as loyal to her as they are because of how she's always run them. She has to be hard on them or they would lose respect for her."

Starry and Jade kept yelling at each other, shouting insults on top of arguments. I doubted either of them could even hear the other.

"I know it's unfortunate to see ponies getting punished for just trying to help," Trailblazer said, turning his head to face me. "I've done my best to teach Jade what's right and what's wrong, but the wasteland has had much longer to teach her much harsher lessons. I can only trust her to do what she thinks is right."

"Can't you do something to stop them fighting?" I pleaded. "Won't Jade do what you tell her to do?"

Trailblazer simply shook his head. "She certainly would. I suspect that Jade would walk off a cliff without a second thought if I told her to do it." He stifled a small laugh. "But no . . . Jade needs to stay in command of her gang; it's her orders they follow, not mine. I depend on Jade to support me in my efforts, and she depends on her gang to follow her orders unquestioningly. Part of that means I need to let her run her gang as she sees fit."

I glanced over at the gang ponies who'd come with Starry to rescue me. They continued to stand there, heads held high, eyes forward, like statues. They surely knew what Jade wanted to do to them, but they didn't show a trace of fear of punishment or regret for their actions.

"It's Jade's call to make," Trailblazer said solemnly. "All I can do is offer my guidance." I looked away from the gang ponies and back at Trailblazer. He smiled at me. "Only a few years ago, she would have executed them right where they stand. She listens to me, as I listen to her." His smile fading a little, he sighed. "And I suppose when I first got down here, I would have reacted much the same as you are now." He put a hoof on my shoulder. "You're a good pony, son. Too good for the wasteland."

Twisting myself out from under his hoof, my attention returned to Starry. "Starry," I spoke up, cutting her off in the middle of yelling something at Jade. She looked at me, her ears twitching. "Starry, ma'am, I think we should let it go. It's not our place to interfere." I cleared my throat. "I—I mean . . . it's like you said about the Enclave, right? We've got enough of our own problems to worry about without trying to fix everypony else's?"

Starry glanced back and forth between me and Jade a few times, while Jade stood tall, quietly smirking down at her. Finally, with a sigh, Starry lowered her head, muttered something under her breath, and pulled out her flask for a sip as she walked away.

"Captain, a word, please!" Trailblazer called out, trotting after her. She didn't slow down to let him catch up any easier.

Jade turned back to her "deserters." Stomping her hoof with a deep bellow, "I'll deal with you later. We've got a caravan to move, so get fucking moving!" She added another heavy stomp of her hoof to punctuate her command, and her gang members immediately ran off to whatever duties they must have already had.

That matter dealt with, Jade herself cantered away, leaving me alone in the middle of the caravan.

"The ants go marching two by two, eh, little bird?"

I looked up to see Grift beside me. Looking out over the caravan, she watched as everypony started moving again, hitching up to their wagons and plodding forward. It was as if the skirmish with the raiders had never even happened; we were simply leaving it behind with all the dead.

"Ants?" I asked quietly.

Grift nodded, continuing to gaze out ahead of us. The wind blew her tangled mane in front of her face, but she seemed unfazed by it. She spoke in a slow, mournful tone:

"From day through night I watched them, marching ahead in silence, their footsteps making nary an echo with the earth. It was as though the ground cared not to listen to them.

"Not one of them strayed from the procession; they clung to one another's hinds as though they feared a steep fall to either side. Not once did they pause to regard the world beyond their peers; not once did they crane a head around to glimpse where they were headed—they were blind, after all.

"When one fell, his followers leapt forward as one, seizing hold of his successor as they trampled him into the earth. They accepted, they moved on, they forgot.

"So certain they were that they were chasing after salvation, but they had lost its scent long ago. I found their leader at the end of their trail, weary and alone—but stumbling ever forward, for fear of the army at his back."

Grift adjusted Old Pain across her shoulders and turned her head to look back at me. "Come along, little bird. The ants are marching." She smiled.

***

It wasn't long before the caravan was moving along just like it had been that morning. Looking around, I couldn't even tell that we'd lost anypony. Wagons that had lost their owners had new ones now. Items that had lost their wagons found their way into saddlebags and other wagons. Nopony cried for those who'd been lost in the raider attack. We all simply carried on.

Rake was apparently busy managing the advance scouts, and Grift had vanished into the crowd almost as soon as I'd taken my eyes off of her. Starry kept patrol closeby along the edge of the caravan where I could always spot her. She was keeping her distance, however; Trailblazer was walking alongside me, and Jade never strayed far from him if she didn't have to.

As I watched Starry from a distance like that, I felt guilty. She obviously didn't like Trailblazer and his friends—and they didn't seem to like her very much either, save for Trailblazer himself, who, for all of his efforts to get along with her, wasn't likely expecting her to stay for much longer anyway—but it was for my sake that Starry was there. And there I was, not even spending time near her.

Trailblazer had a way of simply making me feel at-ease, though. Being around him felt inspiring—like I might actually be able to find a place out here where a nopony like me could fit in. I figured if maybe Starry could see him as a good pony, she might be able to get along with him too. Still, it was a difficult position to be in: Starry had helped keep me safe since we first met, and she had come to rescue me when I had been in trouble. Remembering, however, what Trailblazer had said the previous night about his own exile—and seeing what he'd managed to accomplish in the time since then . . . I felt like there were a lot of things I could learn from him.

"Something on your mind, son?" he asked, having apparently noticed the pensive look on my face.

"Well . . . you said you were a teacher, right?" I asked, glancing over at him as he nodded. "What did you teach?"

Trailblazer's eyes scanned upwards toward the cloud cover, and his lips curled back in a faint smile. "Oh, it was a little bit of everything, really. I'd taught both science and literature at higher grades, but I moved into teaching younger students the first chance I got because it meant I got to exercise everything I had learned myself." He let out a wistful sigh. "For nearly as long as I could remember, I'd been interested in reading just about any book I could get my hooves on," he continued, chuckling softly. "It's kinda funny how I got into reading so much, actually."

Jade's ear twitched and she cocked her head toward me. I met her gaze and folded my ears back timidly under her icy stare. She just snorted and returned her attention to the road ahead.

Trailblazer hadn't seemed to notice the look Jade had given me. Instead, he continued with his story: "I was just a little colt—didn't even have my cutie mark yet. I was studying my math textbook one day when I came to a page where one of the formulas had been crossed out, and a correction written in below it. In the margin was a strange note:

"Alas, I've written a truly marvelous proof of this, which this book is too narrow to contain. You'll have to find it in another one. -Janus"

There was that name again. A marvelous proof, dancing with flames, standing through time, pain, and sorrow. . . . What was the other one? Raindrops telling stories? These were puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit together. Just who was this Janus, and why did I keep running into his messages?

"Something about it stuck with me." Trailblazer paused, pursing his lips in a puzzled expression. "I just had to see what this 'marvelous proof' was for myself. After that, I began searching the other copies of the textbook, but mine was the only one with the correction in it. Soon I started reading every book I could get my hooves on, trying to find that proof."

Shrugging, he continued. "Sure, I could've just flipped through the pages, looking for notes in the margins, but I figured I might as well read while I was at it." Trailblazer let out a soft little sigh and looked down at the ground, shaking his head a little. "Alas, I never found it—the Enclave libraries were 'too narrow to contain it,' I suppose," he said with a chuckle. "But, somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn't really looking for that proof anymore. I could see so much more in everything—and everypony—around me. So much untold potential." He turned his head to look at me with a smile, eyes shining brightly. "I knew then that I wanted to see that potential realized. And that's when—" His smile faded and the gleam in his eyes went dark. "When . . . my . . . my cutie mark appeared."

I glanced back at Trailblazer's cutiemark, or rather the brand that had replaced it. It hadn't actually occurred to me until then, just how terrible it must have been for him. He noticed me looking at him, and I bowed my head. "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean to stare. I just—I—that is—um . . . Does it still hurt?"

The corners of his lips pulled up in a bit of a forced smile but it faded quickly. "On the outside? No," he answered softly, shaking his head. "But they did more than just brand me. Throwing me down in the mud took my whole life away. It took me a long time to learn to . . ." He hummed softly, scrunching up his face as he seemed to search for the right words. "Learn to live again."

Jade stepped between me and Trailblazer, shouldering me aside bodily. She cast me a stern glare. "Alright, kid. Story time's over. Go run along back to mommy," she said with a scowl, jerking her head in Starry's direction.

I balked, my ears flushing hotly as they folded back. "She's not my mother!"

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just get lost already."

"Jade," Trailblazer interjected, putting a hoof on her shoulder, "be nice. Lucky Day only asked an innocent question."

Jade regarded me with a contemptuous snort but seemed otherwise content to tolerate my presence. At least for the moment. Still, I slowed my pace to fall behind them. I could tell Jade didn't want me around.

With a patient sigh, Trailblazer fell back alongside me and put his wing across my shoulders, making me tense up. "It's alright. You didn't do anything wrong," he told me. I just looked away, uncomfortably waiting for him to take his wing off me. He did, after a long, awkward pause.

There was some kind of commotion ahead of us in the caravan. Trailblazer and I both looked over to see what was happening: Two ponies in tipped scales armor were yelling insults at each other. One gave the other a push with her forehoof, and the other came back with a forceful shove of her flank into the first one's side, knocking her down. Everypony around them just kept trotting along as if nothing were happening. My chest grew tight and I watched in frightened awe as that mare loomed over her rival.

Then they both broke out laughing. The one standing helped the other one up and they continued on as if nothing had happened. I let out the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and turned my head to see Trailblazer smiling.

"Switch Blade and Marshmallow Cream," he said. "Their gangs had one of the oldest and bloodiest feuds going on back in their home city. Jade put an end to it once and for all when she rose to power."

I looked up ahead at Jade. Everypony gave her plenty of space to move about as she cantered along at a steady pace, her watchful gaze scanning across the crowd periodically. Every so often, somepony would approach her to deliver a report, and would be given new orders to relay. The way everypony acted around her, she clearly commanded respect, and it was well-deserved; if she could bring old enemies together like that . . .

Trailblazer patted my shoulders with his wing. "Listen, I have to make my rounds—check in with other parts of the caravan. Why don't you try talking to Jade for a bit while I'm busy?" he suggested. "I know she can be intimidating, but she just needs to warm up to you is all."

I gulped, unsure, but I nodded anyway, forcing a smile for Trailblazer. He returned the smile and gave me another pat across the shoulders with his wing before moving off into the crowd.

After Trailblazer left me behind, I continued to hang back from Jade. "Intimidating" was an understatement. Considering the way she carried herself—the way every hoofstep beat upon the ground beneath her—and the way she always seemed as if she were just looking for an excuse to buck me halfway across the wasteland . . . she was absolutely terrifying. Everything about her made me feel like if I looked at her the wrong way, or said the wrong thing, or even just set one hoof in the wrong place, that she'd come down on me like an elevator counterweight dropping from Security all the way down to maintenance.

Whenever something in Security required maintenance, I did everything I could to avoid having to be the one to fix it. Security ponies were fine most of the time, sure, but I could never simply do my work and leave. There was always somepony—usually a few—watching me, laughing when I couldn't find my wrench. I'd have to go all the way back down to maintenance to get another one. Once, I made the mistake of leaving my other tools behind. When I got back to finish the work, those were missing too.

Fortunately, most of the other ponies in maintenance owed me favors for all the extra shifts I took to cover theirs, and I could usually talk somepony into handling Security's repairs for me.

There wasn't anypony else who could talk to Jade for me, though. Not if she was going to "warm up to me" like Trailblazer suggested. So I stepped up my pace a bit to catch up to the imposing green mare.

"Um. Hi, Jade." I cleared my throat. "Trailblazer, um, thought I should talk to you . . ."

Keeping her eyes on the path ahead, Jade let out an impassive grunt.

My eyes drifted back along the side of her armor, drawn to the weapon mounted on her battle saddle. "That's a . . . nice weapon, ma'am."

She glanced sidelong at me. "What do you know about guns?"

"They're . . . dangerous?" I answered meekly.

Jade harrumphed. "Here's some free advice: learn how to use a gun." She turned her head toward me. "Are you wasting my time?"

"What? N—no, ma'am . . ."

"Then look at me when I'm talking to you."

Immediately, I lifted my gaze to meet hers. "Better. Stand up straight. Good. Now, I was saying . . ." This wasn't her usual dismissive, impatient tone; she spoke with a deep seriousness, demanding my complete attention as though my life depended on it. "Guns solve problems," she said firmly. "Somepony gets in your way, you put her down. If you waste time, she'll put you down first."

The day before, I had been staring up at a filthy raider who would have smashed my head in with a sledgehammer if it hadn't "put her down" first. "I . . . I understand." I nodded solemnly.

Keeping her icy gaze on me a moment longer, she grunted as she returned to looking ahead. "Good."

My eyes lingered on her battle saddle—on Pride, on its massive twin barrels and belted ammo feed that ran across her back to a box on her other side. I imagined that gun had solved a lot of problems for Jade, and that it would solve a lot more for her.

Drifting back along her side, my eyes settled on the tipped scales painted in gold on her flanks. "So, um . . . 'shifting the balance,' huh?"

"What?"

"Your cutie mark, I mean. Your talent is shifting the balance?"

Jade rolled her eyes, snorting. "Who told you that?"

Falling back a half-step, I answered meekly, "I um . . . I don't know. Just somepony wearing your gang's armor. Why? That's not right?"

"Close enough," Jade said with a shrug. She glanced back over her shoulder at me, her brow furrowed. She turned around to face me, blocking my path as she stared down at me menacingly. "Only two ponies know how I got my 'mark. One of 'em hanged herself the day it happened, and the other is Trailblazer. Fuck if I know how he got me to tell him, but at least he knows better than to go spreading it around." She narrowed her eyes at me. "You ain't him," she growled.

My ears folded back. I could feel them flushed hotly. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to pry. I just . . . it seems like it's important to you, is all. I mean, it's all over everypony's armor, and—"

A sound I'd never expected to hear cut me off: Jade laughed. It was a dry, voiceless laugh, like a whisper. It almost sounded like a forced laugh, or maybe not forced, but restrained—to keep anypony else from hearing it. "Not me it's important to; it's them." She jerked her head, indicating a passing group of her gang members. "What it is doesn't matter as much as what ponies believe it is. I brought them together, and my 'mark is what they rally under. As long as they fight who I tell 'em to fight and die for what I tell 'em to die for, I don't give two shits what they think it means. So you go ahead: you believe whatever you want about me. I've got better things to do than going around telling my life story to every whimpering foal still learning how to walk out here."

I gulped, cowing under her glare. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."

Jade chuckled softly, smirking. "At least they teach you stable ponies some manners. We ever visit your stable, I'll shake the hoof of whoever it was taught you to show respect." I was left there standing by myself as she turned and continued walking with the caravan, shaking her head and mumbling to herself.

Somehow, I don't think she'll ever get that hoofshake.

As I felt the blood returning to my face, I let out a tense sigh and continued on after her, staying well behind. Jade wasn't keen on talking much, and I'd clearly exhausted her patience for me. She seemed to get along just fine with Trailblazer, and I had to wonder just how long it had taken her to "warm up" to him.

Without Jade or Trailblazer by my side anymore, Starry made her way over to walk with me. She wasn't looking very well: her mane was coming out of its braid, stray hairs dangled over her face, her cap was crooked, and her eyes were dark and sunken. She looked like how I felt after a week of triple shifts.

Sighing and holding a hoof to her forehead, Starry grimaced. "Day, could you get my aspirin bottle for me?"

I nodded quietly and opened up her saddlebag. The bottle was right at the top of the bag's jumbled contents, and I handed it off to Starry. She gave a small grunt of thanks and shook out one of the chalky tablets. Popping it into her mouth, she chewed it briefly before washing it down with a long sip from her flask.

Starry let out a relieved sigh, stopping for a moment to fix her cap. "Thank you, Day. I—"

"Keeping yourself well-medicated, I see." We both turned to see Grift casually walk up from behind us, slipping between Starry and myself.

"Excuse me?" Starry glared at her.

Grift brushed back her tangled mane, smiling pleasantly. "It's just nice to see somepony who takes care of her health, you know? So many ponies out here tend to take it for granted. They even go around throwing themselves into danger because why should a few bullet wounds matter when a healing potion can just fix everything, right?"

Starry narrowed her eyes, her wings puffing out slightly. "I don't like your tone."

"Tone?" Grift gasped. "What I said was a compliment, wasn't it? Can't you hear alright? I suppose all those explosives you work with can really do a number on your ears, don't they. It's alright, I und—"

"My ears work just fine," Starry growled. "You know what else works just fine? My eyes."

"Oh, I'm sure they do, now."

Starry didn't even acknowledge Grift's interruption, continuing, "I can see right through you—through this 'nice pony' facade of yours. You're hiding something."

"Starry." Grift let out a short little laugh. "Captain. We're all hiding something, aren't we?" Grift tilted her head toward Starry, flashing her a toothy smile. "You already know that plain sight is the best place to hide anything, don't you?"

Just as I was about to speak up, somepony bumped up alongside me. He threw his foreleg around my shoulders and pulled me aside. "Ooh! So tell me what we've got going on here, my little pony. I miss anything good? Or they just getting warmed up?"

I turned to find Rake's face uncomfortably close. His pale blue eyes stared directly into mine. Squirming, I pushed him away and ducked out from under his embrace. "I can't just let this happen. I have to—"

"Oh, you have to do something?" He circled around, putting himself between me and Starry. She was quickly becoming more upset with Grift, her wings flaring up as she poked a hoof at Grift's chest. Her voice was barely restrained as she growled at Grift. Grift, meanwhile, almost seemed to enjoy what was going on as much as Rake was, she was smiling so brightly.

"Ooh, we're in for a real good show if these two get into it," Rake said with a grin, licking his lips. "There's nothing you have to do here besides sit back and enjoy it."

No matter how I tried to duck around Rake, he matched my moves with an effortless grace, always blocking my path. Rearing up, I called out, "Starry! Please don't hurt her! She helped us, remember? Helped me after those raiders attacked us?"

For a moment, their squabble abated, as Starry glanced back and forth between me and Grift. Grift spared a look back at me as well, smiling as she turned back to face Starry again. "Yes, see?" she said with a shake of her tangled mane. "I'm just being helpful, like the little bird says. Don't you remember? You did quite a number on those raiders yesterday when we saved you, and soon as I finished patching up that poor colt whose leg you mangled, I—"

"There you go bringing that up again. Just what kind of game are you playing? What are you trying to accuse me of?"

"Watch this," Rake said to me in a whisper, grinning widely. He called out loudly—loud enough for half the caravan to hear as they trotted around us, "She just likes to remind herself that there are ponies as cruel as she can be."

Grift stood there, frozen for a moment with her mouth agape. She closed it slowly, whatever she'd been about to say lost to the wind. Her head turned toward us, her face laid bare. She affected neither smile, nor frown. Her lips, her cheeks, her brow; they were all still, bearing no trace of emotion. Only her eyes . . .

Her eyes gleamed; a flickering candle flame that drew my entire focus. "You." Her lips barely moved as she spoke. "Of all ponies. You call me cruel." Her voice sounded far away, barely above a whisper. Tears welled up inside her eyes, glowing green in the reflected light of her horn's magic.

My knees shook, threatening to drop me to the cold earth as I watched her cold glare.

And Rake . . . Rake laughed at her.

"Rake." The grin melted off the raider buck's face almost instantly as Trailblazer came galloping up. Looking at Rake with a small frown as he moved up alongside, Trailblazer drooped his ears and shook his head slowly. The raider was quiet, his head bowed and ears folded back. Trailblazer let out a patient sigh, and suggested to Rake that he go check in with the other scouts.

Rake nodded and galloped off through the caravan. Watching him run, he ducked and weaved around other ponies, careful not to simply plow through them, as I'd seen him do before.

Meanwhile, Grift had shrunken back. I was honestly surprised she hadn't just vanished into the crowd already. Trailblazer looked over to her and smiled gently as he unfolded a wing to motion for her to come closer. She did, and he put his wing around her shoulders. "Rake is a very forward pony, I'm afraid, and he doesn't always remember that not everypony else can be as open as he is about their pasts," he said, looking over to me and Starry as she took up a place at my side.

Lifting his wing from Grift's shoulders, Trailblazer gave her side a gentle nudge to push her toward us. She looked back at him, and he gave a small nod with an encouraging smile.

Grift closed her eyes and sighed. The various noises of the caravan—dozens of hoofsteps, wagon wheels, the din of conversations around us—all of it seemed to go quiet as we turned our attention to her. "There was this job I took one time. Contract killing. It's nasty business 'cause it's always the nice ponies getting hits put out on them, never the ones putting out the hits." She paused briefly and shrugged. "Not that that ever stopped me before."

My eyes widened as I listened to her. Grift hadn't struck me as the kind of pony to . . . do that sort of thing. I suppose that's when it really started to sink in that everypony out here ends up being a killer eventually. I was off to a fantastic start already. Glancing over at Trailblazer, I wondered how long it had taken him.

"I met with the guy and asked him what he wanted," Grift continued, speaking very matter-of-factly. "He told me it wasn't about what he wanted. There was a stallion who'd become a problem for him. Told me to make him want to die."

"Make him want to die?" I echoed incredulously. Grift simply nodded. "I don't understand."

"You will," she said, smiling at me. It was a pleasant, genuine kind of smile, the kind she'd seemingly always had on when she spoke directly to me. Her smile faded, though, as she went on. "After I tracked him down, I spent a couple days just watching him through my scope." She levitated out Old Pain, aiming it toward some distant hills as she peered through the optics. "Then, while he was traveling between settlements, I started taking pot-shots at him." She jerked the rifle a few times in her telekinesis. "Silencing talisman made it so he never knew where it was coming from. Just the impacts around his hooves. Kept him awake for days at a time like that." She managed to sound almost proud about it.

"I followed him for weeks like that. I'd leave him alone sometimes, and just watch as he'd stir all night, unable to sleep." Her voice took on a strange tone as she said that. It made me think of the way somepony would talk about a pleasant evening with her special somepony. The thought made my wings bristle as a chill ran up my back.

"One day he wanders into this small farmstead. I followed him through my scope." Grift's voice returned to sounding detached, clinical. It was like how I might give a report about the repairs I'd done in ventilation control. "He rented lodging from the couple living there. They had a small filly. Blank-flank. He was nervous around her the first day, kept checking over his shoulder as if he knew I was watching, but after a while he relaxed and got friendly with her. I'd watched him teach her a few things about gun maintenance. She took a liking to it.

"He stayed about a week with the family with no sign from me. Assumed I'd moved on, and was actually getting to sleep at night. Then, as he was saying his goodbyes, he put a hoof on the little filly's head; tousled her mane. She looked up at him with this great big smile and bright blue eyes, sparkling in the morning light.

"I put a bullet right between her eyes."

I tripped over my own hooves and fell face-first into the dirt. My heart felt like it had skipped about ten dozen beats; and, as I scrambled back to my hooves, all I could do was stare at her in slack-jawed horror.

Grift turned to look at me as she shouldered her rifle, giving a bit of a shrug. "Told you I'd done worse than fuck up a raider's leg." She sighed, and turned her gaze upward as she continued. "He ran after that. I followed him, putting a shot at his hooves every time he stopped."

"Eventually, he came upon a town far to the south. They had a minefield protecting them on all sides, save for one clear path in and out. I followed him into a saloon there. Sat down at the bar, ordered a drink, and watched him. He knew it was me." Again she had that tone as if reminiscing about a date she'd been on.

"He drank a whole bottle of whiskey by himself then staggered out into the street. I followed. Outside, he yelled at me. Asked me what I wanted." Her brow furrowed and she frowned. "I told him it wasn't about what I wanted. I asked what he wanted."

Grift closed her eyes for a moment, taking a breath and gulping. I could see her legs trembling with each step she took. "He said he wanted to die. My job was done. So I pointed him toward the minefield and left." Grift hung her head and blinked slowly, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Trailblazer stepped up close alongside her and put a wing over her shoulders as he looked over to me and then to Starry, who'd listened to Grift's entire story with a stone-etched face. "My friends aren't perfect, Captain," Trailblazer said calmly. "The reality is that nopony down here is, and my friends happen to represent some of the worst that the wasteland has to offer. But they've changed; Grift perhaps more than any pony."

Starry just continued to stare, her eyes narrow, scrutinizing them.

Sighing heavily, Trailblazer patted Grift's shoulders with his wing and whispered something to her. She nodded, and, adjusting Old Pain across her shoulders, slipped away into the caravan, out of sight.

"Everyone here carries a burden," he said, moving closer to us and then, turning, he waved a hoof across the line of the caravan. "Those burdens are more than just a sad story of loss or remorse, though. It took me years down here before I finally learned to see it: the burdens we all carry are those of lost potential—the wasteland robs us of the chance to shine. I see it in everypony I meet. It was by making friends with ponies like Grift, Jade, and Rake that I've been able to help them start to realize their potentials—help them learn to live again as I have."

He turned back to face us, daylight gleaming in his eyes; shining with Celestia's own fire. "We're doing more than just establishing trade routes and reforming raiders, Captain. We're rebuilding lives. Can't you see that?"

In that moment, Starry seemed to soften a little. Her wings dropped slightly and she looked down, pursing her lips in thought. Then her brow furrowed, and she looked back at Trailblazer. "You actually believe that, don't you? You high-minded idealist," she sneered, her wings flaring out. "You're so caught up in your own self-deceptions you can't see when somepony is so obviously faking tears to win your sympathy."

Trailblazer fell back a half a step but his own wings flared as he pushed back against Starry's accusation. "How dare you. Talking so openly and honestly about the things she's been through has been one of the hardest things for Grift to do. It's taken years of building a trusting relationship with her to get her to open up about these things."

"All according to her plans, I'm sure," Starry scoffed. "I don't know what she's up to, but she's using you. They're all using you, and you're too blind to see it!"

"Now, you lis—"

"I take back what I said: Being down here isn't the least you deserve. It's exactly what you deserve." Starry fanned her wings in agitation, kicking up a cloud of dust around her. "Maybe after they finish taking advantage of you, you'll finally realize that we have no business down here in the mud."

My heart was racing so hard I could hear it pounding in my ears. How could she say those things? "Starry . . ." I choked back a whimper.

"What!" She wheeled around at me, and instantly her expression softened. She folded her wings and reached a hoof out to my shoulder. I flinched, ducking my head away from her. "Day? What's wrong?"

My hooves tingled, a host of needles stabbing up and down my forelegs, while a fire burned inside my chest, choking me as my lungs struggled for air. "Have to get along," I gasped out between rapid breaths. "It's important to get along." The ground came rushing up at me, then stopped inches from my face. Starry had her hooves on my shoulders. Everything went hazy after that. Voices I couldn't make any sense out of swarmed around me in a darkening cloud. Everything around me was being swallowed up by the hooves I felt pressing in around me. I thrashed and tried to scream, but my lungs felt empty. Then it all went quiet.

Slowly, I started coming around. The world around me came back into focus, and I realized I was lying down on my side. The caravan was moving around me. Some ponies turned their heads to look at me as they passed, but most continued on without even a glance.

"Easy, there, Day," Starry said as I started to sit up. She braced her shoulder under mine and helped me back to my hooves. "Are you alright?"

I looked around slowly. Trailblazer was there too, standing a few feet away. Taking a few slow breaths, I wavered on my hooves a bit as I edged away from Starry. "I . . . I'm fine. What happened?"

"You started hyperventilating, and nearly passed out," Trailblazer said, taking a few steps closer. "You started kicking when we tried lifting you into a stretcher, so we just gave you some space to calm down. You have a history of panic attacks, son?"

I shook my head.

"I've been inside a few stables over the years. Seems like they all had their own unique ways of messing up the ponies who lived in them," he said grimly. "All the ones I saw were long dead, so I imagine yours wasn't the worst if it's still going after all this time, but it's clearly left its mark on you." He moved a little closer. "You wanna tell us what it was like in your stable?"

"I don't . . . I don't know what to say about it, sir," I said meekly, bowing my head. "It . . . everypony gets along. Nopony fights or yells. We just have to get along. Do whatever it takes. It's important we get along."

Trailblazer glanced over at Starry briefly, the two sharing an odd look; one part worry, one part regret, if I had to try to describe it. "How come you left the stable, son?"

Wincing my eyes shut, I turned my head away, and sighed. "I . . . I didn't get along. I . . . killed somepony."

For a moment, there was only the steady drone of hoofsteps around us as the caravan carried on. A hoof came to rest on my shoulder, and I pulled away from it. Opening my eyes and turning back, I saw Starry taking her outstretched hoof back. She sighed a little and took out her flask for a sip.

"Who did you kill, son?" Trailblazer asked in a cautious tone.

"I—it doesn't matter. She's dead, and it's my fault, and I can't go back. Just . . . please . . . let me just forget about it."

"Son—"

"Stop calling me that! My name is Day! Just Day! Why does it matter so much what happened in the stable? It's over and I can't go back, so there's no use in dwelling on it. I'm just moving on with my life."

"Day . . ." Starry drew my attention, speaking in low tones. "It's alright, Day. Calm down. You don't have to talk about it."

I looked at her, then back at Trailblazer. He frowned and shook his head slowly without saying anything. My ears folded back; I could feel them flushed hotly. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to yell at you."

A few of the caravan ponies had paused to look on at the scene I had made, but Trailblazer waved them off, and they kept moving. Heaving a tired sigh, he moved to stand by my side, opposite from Starry. "Come along. Let's keep moving."

After a short bit of walking in silence, Trailblazer spoke up again, "It's not a bad thing to want to see ponies getting along, Day. We're out here trying to get ponies to do just that, really. I apologize, Captain, for not being more forthright about my plans, but Jade insisted on keeping you in the dark." Starry rolled her eyes at that, mumbling something under her breath as she took another sip from her flask.

"It's taken years of hard work," Trailblazer continued, a note of pride in his voice, "but we're finally getting close to being able to bring peace back to Equestria."

Starry nearly choked on her drink, coughing and sputtering as she looked across at Trailblazer. "Excuse me? And just what magical secret did you find that'll let you do that?"

Trailblazer laughed and smiled. "It's less to do with magical secrets, Captain, and more to do with making friends." He paused, looking up at the cloudy sky. "The problems down here all stem from a lack of resources, none the least of which is food. Without proper sunlight, crops don't grow very well. Shortages drive ponies to raid from neighboring settlements, which only leads to more strife and wasted resources. In the end, everypony loses out." He grinned wryly. "But if we could provide enough food for everypony . . ."

Starry opened her mouth to speak, but Trailblazer continued, smiling. "The Enclave has to keep the sky closed for their own farms, I know. But I've seen those farms; they're nowhere near as efficient as they could be on the ground. So my plan is this: we're going to trade for the sky." Starry looked at him skeptically; and, I admit, I was unsure about what he was suggesting as well.

"It's actually all very simple," he explained. "By making friends with various settlements, we help establish trade routes. Gangs like Jade's help us provide security for towns and traders, and ponies like Rake help us reform what raiders we can. With security and thriving trade, we can start building a surplus. And with that surplus, we can offer the Enclave more food than they can produce on their own in exchange for opening up the cloud cover so we can grow even more."

We continued walking in silence for a while while Starry and I thought about his plan. I wasn't sure it would be that easy to save up enough food to make the kind of trade he was suggesting, and from the look on Starry's face, she had her doubts as well, but I looked at the caravan around us: Trailblazer already had at least this many ponies on his side. There might actually be something to his plan after all.

"That's what this caravan is about," Trailblazer spoke up again as it seemed like Starry had reached the same, cautiously optimistic, conclusion that I had. "We're heading to a town called Primrose. Should be coming into view once we crest those hills up there," he said, motioning ahead. "We're going to be establishing formal contact with them, and hopefully negotiating a trade and security agreement. I understand they have access to a lot of salvaged technology from an old Solaris substation; stuff we need a lot of back home for some other projects."

Starry took another sip from her flask. "Well, I suppose for an idealist, you at least have some decent ideas." She looked at me briefly, and sighed. "I guess, maybe . . . maybe you're not so bad after all." Trailblazer smiled brightly. "For a dashite," Starry hastily added with a scowl.

He just laughed it off, though. "Well, it's a start. But what about you, Captain? I've told you about what I'm doing out here. What brings a lone officer dirtside?"

Starry took a long draught from her flask, then tucked it away, snorting. "Special assignment. I'm looking for something, but you'll excuse me if I think better of revealing the details of my mission to a dashite. Especially one with his own army."

Trailblazer smiled, waving a hoof. "Fair enough, Captain. Though, I'd prefer you not think of my friends as an army," he said. As we continued trotting up through the caravan, I noticed that everypony around us had stopped. Many of the caravaners had unhitched themselves from their carts and were sitting down to rest.

"What's going on?" I asked as we approached the front of the caravan, cresting over the hills Trailblazer had pointed out earlier.

While the caravan behind us had come to a stop, there was a swarm of activity on the hilltop. Jade was barking orders to her gang ponies, organizing them into squads. Rake was doing much the same with his scouts, and Grift was scanning ahead through her rifle scope. Trailblazer strode into the bustle confidently, smiling as he looked out at the town that was now only a short gallop away. "A lot of ponies all at once can spook a small town like this," he said. "We stop a ways away and organize a small team to make contact and let them know we're here before we bring the caravan in."

"Everything looks clear from here," Grift reported, shouldering her rifle.

Rake cantered up at a leisurely pace. "Scout teams say we're cool."

Lastly, Jade approached. "Caravan's secure, sir. We're ready to move when you are."

Nodding to each of his friends in turn, Trailblazer smiled. His wings fluttered a bit, and he straightened his jacket before turning back to face me and Starry. "First contact with a new town is always exciting," he let out a dry laugh. "Would you two mind—"

"Vertibuck incoming!"

An anxious silence fell upon us as we all looked back toward the town. A large, dark craft was descending into it. The high-pitched whine of its engines was loud, even at that distance. As it touched down in the middle of the town, a hatch at the back of the craft opened. Three ponies—pegasi in dark full-body armor—exited, fanning out to face the townsponies that had come out to meet them.

One of the townsponies approached the armored pegasi. They were too far out, and the craft—a vertibuck, they'd called it—while even at an idle, was still loud enough to drown out their voices. From the way they were gesturing at each other, it looked like they were arguing.

Everypony's attention was fixed on the scene out in the town. Everypony except Starry. I happened to glance aside and noticed her simply watching Trailblazer: He stood as still and quiet as everypony else. Then, as a gasp echoed through the onlooking caravaners, his wings flared out. My eyes were drawn back to the distant scene where the armored pegasus was kicking aside the town's envoy.

Curses and racial epithets murmured around us at the sight, and I suddenly felt very aware of my wings, folding them tightly against my sides as I fidgeted around nervously on my hooves. Trailblazer had his eyes downcast, glancing from side to side while he silently mouthed his thoughts to himself, no doubt trying to work out how to handle the situation.

Rake's sword floated out at his side as he stepped up beside Trailblazer. The sword's handle, held in his red aura, clicked a couple times, and a sheath of flame ran up the length of the blade. The raider dropped into a stance; muscles taut, he glanced at Trailblazer, begging with his eyes to be let loose.

Trailblazer gave only the slightest shake of his head, holding out his hoof to stay Rake's charge. The unicorn let out a small sigh as he relaxed, standing down. His sword stayed out, though, flames lapping at the air beside him while his eyes stayed fixed on the town.

Old Pain was brought to bear, hovering steadily in Grift's green magic as she peered down its scope. Whatever future she might have seen through that scope was interrupted by Trailblazer, however, as he put a hoof to her shoulder. She pulled away from her scope to look at him—at the solemn look in his eyes. She too sighed, but unlike Rake, it was a sigh of resignation rather than one of disappointment. Her rifle lowered all the same, though.

Jade's voice boomed. Decisive and authoritative, she wanted to advance with a show of force to drive "those fucking pigeons" out. Several of her gang ponies, all clad in their matching tipped-scales armor, stood at the ready; they were all just waiting for the go-ahead from their boss to rebalance the odds.

Before Trailblazer could render his verdict to Jade, Starry stepped forward. She was aghast at the options being presented. As an Enclave captain, she pointed out, she could assume command of the situation. Finally, here it was: the moment when Starry could show everypony that she could get along with them—that she deserved to be their friend.

Trailblazer's eyes shined brightly as the same thought seemed to occur to him. He smiled, even as Jade began to protest, accusing Starry of staging an ambush.

And that's when the sounds of gunfire reached us.

Everypony turned his attention back to the town. Shouts and screams echoed across to our staging ground where we could only watch as the crowd of townsponies broke and scattered in a panic. The Enclave soldiers fired wildly at anypony who even vaguely appeared to be moving in their direction and quickly fell back to the vertibuck. The engines roared back to full power, and the dark craft rose up out of the town, climbing its way into the clouds and out of sight.

An eerie calm fell over the wasteland. Everything seemed still and quiet, like time had frozen simply to taunt us with just how powerless we were in that moment. The distant cries of panic and despair snapped us out of our stupor, and suddenly everything was a frantic mess of running and shouting. In the middle of it all, I found myself galloping along with everypony else, rushing toward the town.

"Day!" A voice from behind broke my stride, and I came to a halt, wheeling around to find Starry racing up to catch me. "Day! Come on, let's get out of here while we can."

I looked back over my shoulder at the town and at everypony galloping toward it. "But . . . we have to help them, ma'am. We can't just abandon them . . ."

Starry slumped down, pulling out her flask with shaky hooves, and taking a long drink from it. "We can't stay here," she said, looking up at me. "Please, Day, come with me. They have enough ponies here to handle things. If we hurry, we can make it back to—"

"I'm sorry, ma'am," I said hastily over my shoulder as I turned to start running again. "I have to go help. I'll come back and we'll talk after, okay?"

Up close was a swarming hive, full of screams, crying, and shouted orders. I almost instantly lost my way, stumbling around blindly, unsure of what or whom I was looking for. Weaving my way through the chaotic mass and into the center of the chaos, I saw a young foal beating her hooves on the shoulder of a stallion. He was just laying there on his side, his eyes open but vacant. He'd been shot through the neck. The little filly was crying, begging him to wake up. She was all alone. Nopony was stopping to help her.

"Day!" Trailblazer's voice broke me away from the scene. Spotting him closer to where the vertibuck had landed, I hurried over, leaving the filly behind.

"Day, thank the goddesses. I need somepony to help Grift with triage. We're setting up a makeshift—"

"They're coming back!" A shout rose above the wailing din of the town. Trailblazer and I both turned to see a pegasus flying overhead. It was Starry, coming in for a hard landing near us, stumbling and nearly tripping over her own hooves as she did so. There was more yelling, and then ponies started closing in around her, throwing things at her.

"Wait! I'm not—ow!" Starry shielded her head with her wings while trying to dodge the incoming barrage.

"Everypony, back off!" Trailblazer called out as he rushed to meet her. His own wings flared out, he stood between her and the angry mob. At first, nopony heeded his call for order, but then a loud, deafening roar shook the air. Jade stomped heavily upon the ground, trigger bit in her mouth, the twin barrels of her gun, Pride, smoking after she'd fired it off into the air. I shuddered to think what a cannon like that would do to a pony. The crowd stopped throwing things, but they were still yelling, albeit from a further distance. "Captain, this might not be the best place for you right now," Trailblazer said to Starry.

"I need to—need to help," she said, swaying a bit on her hooves. "It's okay. I'm not some green recruit. I can keep my guns in check. They won't spook me like—like they did to—"

"The fuck?" Rake said sharply as he came galloping up through the crowd. "You hear that? Bitch is saying it's their own fucking fault for getting themselves shot-up!"

"You saw what happened!" Starry asserted. "They threw a grenade at the vertibuck! What did they think was gonna—"

"Are you fucking blind, pigeon? Nopony here threw anything; there was no explosion!" Jade stomped up alongside Trailblazer.

"Jade. Rake. Both of you," he said firmly, "we're not here to place the blame on anypony."

There was so much yelling. Nopony was getting along. My eyes darted around nervously. The way the crowd was pressing in around us, I worried that somepony might start shooting again. I worried that there'd be more blood and more orphaned foals.

"Careful, little bird," a lavender earth pony mare said to me. "Your friend is standing in a minefield. You might not want to get too close to her."

I looked back at Starry. She was backing her way toward me as the crowd started pressing closer again, yelling louder. Jade looked ready to fire off Pride again.

"Everypony, please!" Trailblazer called out loudly; the clamor abated briefly. "Now is not the time for this. We've still got wounded to take care of, let's not forget about that. Come on!" He stomped his hooves. "We need more water and clean cloth for dressings. Let's go, move it!"

The crowd murmured but slowly began dispersing. Trailblazer heaved a sigh and turned back to face us. Starry had retreated back alongside me while Rake and Jade stood on either side of Trailblazer.

"Turkeys are never gonna open up the sky when they can just swoop down and take what they want," Jade growled.

"We need to show them they aren't untouchable—burn the whole fucking sky out from under them!" Rake added.

Trailblazer shook his head. "Now's not the time. Jade, I need you to oversee security around the town. Keep everypony from rioting. Rake, we need runners to get additional supplies from camp. Find Grift and ask what she needs." The two hesitated briefly but nodded and galloped off on their assignments. "Starry," Trailblazer said, taking a cautious step toward us, "I can't guarantee your safety anymore. You need to leave while you can. For your own good."

Starry just stood there for a moment, quiet and expressionless as though she hadn't quite understood what had just been said. Then her eyes narrowed as she glared at Trailblazer. "Fine. Come on, Day. We've got a lot of ground to cover," she said gruffly as she started trotting off.

I started to follow after her but Trailblazer stopped me.

"You don't have to leave," he said with a weak smile. "You're a bright kid and you've got a good heart. The wasteland needs more ponies like you, Day. I need somepony like you."

I looked at Trailblazer. He suddenly seemed so much older, tired. In all the years he'd been out here, how many days like this one had he been through? He had friends, and I could see how they fit together—all pieces of the same puzzle. Did I belong in that picture? Was there a place for me to fit in?

Looking at Starry, I saw her just standing there, looking over her shoulder at me. She was waiting for me to follow. She didn't seem to fit in here at all, but at least she could always go back to the Enclave, couldn't she?

There was something else about her, though. When I looked at Starry, I saw . . . Starry had protected me and helped me from the moment she'd found me. She didn't pressure me about the stable and let me just carry on, leaving it all behind me.

I saw a corner piece. A place to anchor the puzzle on and build from there. The starting point, as good as any might ever be.

I made my choice.

Chapter 5: Chasing Loyalty

A person's life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art or love or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened.

Loyalty. I'd never really thought about it that much during my life in the stable, but here, in my new life outside, I've come to see how important it is. Everypony in the wasteland has loyalties, and to whom—or what—those loyalties are matters. The wrong loyalties could get you killed. And so could betraying those loyalties.

It wasn't easy to turn my back on Trailblazer. I never wanted to abandon anyone, but I couldn't have avoided it: I'd had to choose him or Starry, and Starry . . . well, I couldn't have abandoned her. I just couldn't. Trailblazer had said he needed me, but he already had his friends. He couldn't really need me; he'd been just saying that. Just some sweet nothing to get me to stay. Starry, though, I could see that she needed my help. I just didn't know with what. But when I looked at her, I saw her like she were a big pile of puzzle pieces that had just been dumped out of the box—not just an incomplete puzzle, but one that was barely started. She was a mess, but I felt like I could find the place where I fit in with her.

We left Primrose behind; left Trailblazer and his friends behind. It hadn't been until much later, when it was all out of sight, that I had begun to realize just how terrifying the whole ordeal had been: those pegasi had shown up and simply massacred all those ponies! There weren't just crazed raiders out here, running around, picking on stragglers and caravans; there were armies who'd do just the same.

Starry was a part of one of those armies—the same one that had assaulted Primrose, apparently. But she was different. She wasn't like those raiders who had attacked me and the caravan. It had to have been like she said: those soldiers had just gotten spooked. It wasn't their fault . . . right?

Right. It couldn't have been their fault. They hadn't opened fire as soon as they had shown up, like they would have if they had wanted to just attack the town. The ponies there must have done something to provoke them. If they'd just gotten along with those soldiers, nopony would have died . . .

If Trailblazer really did want to help everypony out here to get along, then I wished him the best of luck. He'd need it. And he'd probably have better luck without me around anyway.

Starry and I had a long, silent walk after we left Trailblazer behind. Just about when the sun was setting, when the clouded sky turned into a brilliant cascade of red hues from one horizon to the other, we arrived at our destination.

It was a settlement of some kind. The buildings looked like they'd been poorly cobbled together from whatever pieces of salvage could be found; scattered around without any apparent plan, aside from keeping a clear path through the town along an old, cracked, and pothole-ridden road that had lain there for the past two centuries.

As we walked into the settlement, I looked around and realized I'd been there already. Sure enough: as we followed the road into the center of the settlement, we came upon Mum's Diner.

"I've been renting a room here for the last several weeks," Starry mumbled. She sounded tired, like she wanted to simply collapse in bed. I knew the feeling all too well myself. "It might not look like much, but the mare who runs the diner is very nice . . . a bit too friendly sometimes, but she doesn't bite."

"A bit too friendly" was an understatement, but I wasn't worried about that. Chrysanthemum had been kind to me, if a bit strange. Instead, I was simply dumbstruck that Starry already knew this place—already knew Chrysanthemum. I'd have called it luck, but luck would have been coming back to the diner without having to—to kill somepony along the way, or witness that massacre at Primrose . . .

In a daze of near disbelief, I followed Starry into the diner. I saw the same brown earth pony who'd been there the first time, passed out in the same corner. A half-dozen empty bottles lay around his table.

"There you are!" sang a pleasant, familiar voice. I turned my head to see the vibrant green mare behind the counter. Her blue and white mane was as bouncy as ever as she put her hooves up on the countertop and smiled at us. "I was starting to worry y'all weren't gonna make it back."

Starry mumbled something and took up a seat at the bar. Practically collapsing onto the counter, she laid her head down and covered her eyes with her forelegs. "Scotch. Double," she groaned.

Chrysanthemum already had a bottle and a glass floating out in her chartreuse aura. She filled the glass and set it down in front of Starry.

"Leave the bottle," Starry mumbled as she reached out to grab the glass between her shaky forehooves.

I took a seat beside her while Chrysanthemum set the bottle down for Starry and turned to me. "How about you, hon? You look like you could use a stiff drink too."

Watching Starry, her head low, barely lifting the glass off the counter as she sipped from it, I shook my head. "No . . . I'm fine, thanks." There was a quiet pause, and I noticed Chrysanthemum was just standing there, smiling at me. Like she were waiting for me to ask.

I bit. "You and Starry already know each other. You sent me right to where I'd meet Starry. Did you know Starry was there when you told me to go scavenge in that ruined building?"

"You caught me," she said with a wide grin and a chuckle. "My devious plot has been uncovered."

I rolled my eyes. "Why? I mean, you could have just told me who to look for." I added under my breath, "Would have saved us a lot of trouble."

She reared up, putting her forehooves on the counter, and leaned in as she smiled at me. "You already knew who you were looking for. You just didn't know it yet. If I'd told you, it would've ruined your first meeting. It had to be organic, a beautiful first meeting, left to your own natural char—"

"She found me half-buried under debris after I fell through several floors."

Chrysanthemum started snickering, biting her hoof to stifle her laugh. "Seriously?" She looked to Starry for confirmation, who gave a small nod while pouring herself a second glass. "Oh, you poor thing. Well, you made it back in one piece, so that's a win in my book. And hey, you did find who you were looking for, after all."

I blinked at her, confused. I didn't remember her being so cryptic the first time I had met her.

"It's what I do," she said, getting down off the counter and turning to the side to show off her cutie mark: a pair of roses, their thorny stems curled together around their petals in the shape of a heart. "I'm a matchmaker."

"Matchmaker?" I asked skeptically.

"Well, what did you expect? A talent for hitting on cute young stallions?" She winked. My ears blushed.

"Wait. You mean . . . you think me . . . and Starry . . . ?"

Chrysanthemum's giggling stopped abruptly as the lights inside the diner flickered, then went dark. Everypony was quiet for a moment before I heard a resigned sigh from Chrysanthemum. "Well, guess the power's out until I can get somepony to fix the generator again," she said, her face illuminated by the soft glow of her chartreuse magic as she levitated several candles and a matchbox from behind the counter. She pulled out a couple matches, skillfully manipulating them in her aura, struck them, and then lit the candles two at a time while she arranged them around the diner.

"Generator?" I asked.

"Yeah. This old hunk-o'-junk portable spark reactor I picked up in a trade years ago," Chrysanthemum said as she blew out the matches. "Why? You know something about fixing 'em?"

"Well, I used to study the stable's spark reactor during my downtime in maintenance, but I've never actually laid hooves on one . . ."

"They only let the senior engineers work on that?" Starry asked. It was the first thing she'd said since she had sat down. I looked over at her; the flickering candlelight cast a warm glow across her face and made the silver bars pinned to her collar twinkle.

I shook my head. "No—well, maybe. Probably, I guess. But it just never came up. That reactor has run perfectly since it came online two centuries ago. Nopony even really thinks about it anymore. I just spent time learning about it because it looked like a really challenging puzzle, especially if I couldn't actually touch the pieces."

I saw Chrysanthemum's smile shining in the dim light. "Well, here's your chance, then. Come along, I'll show you where it is so you can get to wor—"

"Hold on a second there," Starry interrupted, tapping her hoof on the counter. "Day, always agree on payment before you do work for somepony."

"Oh, Starry, hun, you honestly think I'd try to take advantage of him?" There was a brief pause while Starry gave Chrysanthemum a look that seemed to say "are you seriously even asking that?"

Chrysanthemum laughed. "Well, maybe, but can you blame me? There's so much to take advantage of. Isn't that right, stud?" She winked at me. "But it's true: let's be professional about this." She leaned over the counter in front of me, propping her chin up on a forehoof. "So what's a handsome stallion like you charge for his services?"

My ears blushed. "I, um, I don't know . . ."

"Hmm. Okay, here: you get my juice flowing, and I'll pay you a hundred caps," she said in a sultry tone. "How's that sound?"

Trying to ignore her innuendo, and not really having any idea if that was a fair amount, I glanced over at Starry. She gave a small nod, so I accepted. "Alright. I'll get your juices flow—" I realized my slip, and instantly my face flushed hotly. Starry nearly choked on her drink as she started laughing. "The juice—power! I'll get the power—" I tried desperately to correct myself, but between Starry's raucous laughter and the cheeky grin Chrysanthemum had while she simply stared at me, I knew it was too late to take it back. I slumped onto the counter, hiding my face under my fetlocks. "Just show me where the generator is," I mumbled in resignation.

***

Chrysanthemum showed me to the spark generator while Starry stayed at the bar. It was outside, around the back of the diner. She offered to stay and use her magic to provide light for me, since the sun had finished setting and had cast the wasteland into darkness, but I told her my Pipbuck light would be enough. So she left me to take care of it on my own, leaving behind a set of tools she was letting me borrow.

And then I was alone, really alone. I sat down and, for just a minute, simply listened to the silence. The air was still. There was no sound of fans echoing through air ducts, no mechanical hum or squeals. No other ponies. It was never that quiet inside the stable.

I had the faintest twinge of fear in the back of my head that there might be some kind of monster out there in the darkness. Something stalking me, waiting for the right moment to strike. But I put that thought out of my mind with a shake of my head. The settlement around Mum's Diner was wide open; if those sorts of things lurked around here, they'd have some kind of defenses set up. And Chrysanthemum would have said something. A random attack out of nowhere? Even I wasn't that unlucky.

Taking a deep breath, I turned my attention to the generator. It had certainly seen better days, but it was Stable-Tec, same as the reactor in the stable. This was a lot smaller, and probably never meant to last this long, unlike the stable's reactor, but it had the same basic construction, so I was sure I could figure it out.

It had been easy to dismiss the fear of monsters lurking in the darkness. What ended up being much more terrifying, though, was when I opened up the generator. I realized that, despite all the studying I'd done, this was all new to me. I wasn't sure if I could do it, afraid that if I couldn't, it would mean I'd be useless out here. If I was useless, there wouldn't be a place for me. If there was no place for me, where would I go? What would I do? I wondered if Starry would even still want me around.

The first ten minutes I spent just sitting there, staring at the generator's internals in the glow of my Pipbuck. Then I started worrying what would happen if somepony came out to check on me and saw that I hadn't even started yet. I almost started wishing for a monster in the darkness. But I took a moment to take a few deep breaths and focus on the task in front of me. I could do it. I just had to look at the puzzle. The first step was always to take it apart. So I started taking pieces out, laying them on the ground around me in a careful order, keeping all the bolts and screws and fastenings arranged so that they'd all go back in exactly the same place as they had been.

As I got deeper inside the machine, I started finding where seals had worn out, where belts had gone slack, and other worn down parts. The generator was in bad shape. There were no spare parts to fix it with, so I had to make due with the pieces as they were. Where seals had broken, I replaced the parts without them, fastening bare metal together as tightly as possible in hopes that it would reduce the leakage. I moved other parts by bending the frame they were mounted on in order to keep the belts tight. I did what I could to make the worn out parts fit together as seamlessly as possible.

In the end, after I closed everything up, I realized how silly it had been to be afraid of working on it. It had been my job for years back inside the stable. I had known what I was doing. I had just needed to remember that.

I ran my hoof along the casing, marveling at all the work that had gone into making such a thing in the first place, and then I decided to see if I'd gotten it working or not. The thing squealed, clunked, and groaned when I turned it on. It was a tired, pained noise, far from the steady hum of the reactor back in the stable. But it ran. For a brief moment, I actually smiled as I listened to it running. I'd gotten it to work. Even if it wouldn't last more than a few weeks, if that long, it was better than nothing.

"I can do this," I said aloud to myself, breathing a sigh of relief.

I felt a sense of pride in my work. It was one of the few things I'd actually enjoyed in my stable life. Unlike the other engineers in maintenance, who'd often show up late, leave early, and would only go out on service calls when they felt like it, I spent as much time as I could doing work. It felt good to fix things, to put them back together into a complete whole. Almost nopony else seemed to appreciate that like I did . . .

Satisfied that I'd gotten the generator working, I packed up the tools Chrysanthemum had loaned me and headed back inside the diner.

The lights were back on, and Chrysanthemum had put the candles away. She and Starry were busy trading, so I set the tools down on the counter and sat quietly next to Starry, watching them barter over the assorted salvage that Starry had apparently collected in her bags. In the end, Starry offloaded her collected scraps for a couple bottles of scotch, a few gallons of water, ammo and energy cells for her weapons, and a small stack of caps.

I looked over the pile of things that Chrysanthemum had accepted. "What are you going to do with all of that? How is any of it worth anything to you?" I asked as she carried the items in her chartreuse magical aura, sorting them into several small crates against the wall behind the bar.

"Well, they're not really worth anything to me," she explained. "But they're worth something to somepony. There're some traveling merchants who come through here every so often, and I trade things like this to them for food, water, ammo, and other supplies to keep the town alive. They carry it off with them, and, presumably, somewhere along their routes, they meet somepony that needs this crap." Everything had a place in the wasteland, apparently. Even the seemingly useless pieces of garbage. She finished sorting the salvage and turned to face me, floating out a bundle of caps and laying it on the counter in front of me. "Here's your payment, as agreed. If you ever want more work, you know where you can come," she said with a wry smile and a wink.

"Thanks. I'll, um, keep that in mind," I said clearing my throat. Starry and Chrysanthemum shared a brief laugh, which I tried to ignore while tucking the caps into my saddlebag. Something else she'd said caught my attention, however. "What did you mean about 'keeping the town alive'?" I asked.

"There's no real source of food or water around here. If it weren't for me and this diner, there'd be nopony here," she explained.

"You mean you built this town?"

Chrysanthemum laughed. "No. I only inherited the diner after Mum—that wasn't her real name, just what everypony called her 'cuz of the diner's sign; a tradition I don't intend to continue—passed on. And she only moved into it as a place for herself. But when she started renting rooms for traveling merchants, it became a regular stop for them. Prospectors started putting up their own shacks nearby; there's a few city and factory ruins in the area, so they made their livings by bringing that stuff back here to trade to the merchants." She smiled. "Mum took me in when I was just a little filly, didn't even have my cutie mark yet—not 'til after I started setting up dates between the prospectors." She let out a wistful sigh, looking around the diner slowly. "That's when it became a real community, y'know. I know it doesn't look like much now, but just you wait 'til they all come back with their hauls. You'll see how alive this place really is. Especially when one of the traders come through."

Chrysanthemum chuckled quietly. "Heh. You know, I remember when I was growing up here, there was this one merchant who came through every couple weeks. He traded in guns. Can be a real dangerous business, the way he told it, but he was just the sweetest pony I ever spoke to." She hummed to herself for a moment. "He used to teach me about gun maintenance. Really knew his stuff, that stallion."

"You learned a lot from him?" I asked.

"Only everything I know. About firearms, at least." She smiled proudly.

Thinking about that, I pulled out my revolver and set it on the counter. "You think you might be able to tell me why this didn't fire three times in a row? If it had been four, I'd be . . . well, I wouldn't be here."

"Oh, well, sure, hun. Let's have a look." She lifted the gun up in her chartreuse aura, and I watched as she flipped out the cylinder, emptied the rounds and began inspecting it from every angle. "Hmm. It looks like . . ." she said as she glanced at one of the rounds that hadn't fired. Suddenly the entire gun came apart in her magical grip. Every screw, spring, and a number of parts I had no name for floated in her aura. It was as if an exploded diagram had come to life in front of me. A single piece floated away from the rest. "Yup. The firing pin is worn down. I can fix you up with a spare right now if you like."

I was still somewhat in awe, watching all those tiny pieces hovering in such precise arrangement in her magic aura. "Um, sure," I answered.

Humming quietly to herself, Chrysanthemum turned away, continuing to hold the disassembled revolver where it was while she reached out with her magic to rummage through one of the crates against the wall. She lifted out a similar revolver and stripped it apart, letting its pieces fall back into the crate until all she carried was the pin. She turned back to me, reassembled the revolver with its new pin, and set it down on the counter. Then she put her hoof on top of it and leaned over the counter. "So now that I've serviced your piece." She grinned at me. "Let's talk payment."

"I—what?"

Starry snickered, pouring herself another glass of scotch. "You should always agree on payment before anypony else does work for you, too, Day."

"Well, what's it worth to ya, darling?" Chrysanthemum batted her eyes at me.

I frowned, and looked down at the gun under her hoof, mostly just to avoid eye contact with her. "You're sure it'll work just fine now?"

"Absolutely. I've been fixing up guns for years. This right here is a quality weapon, sure to keep you safe if you use it right."

"Alright then. I'll trade you the gun as payment for your service. I have it on good authority that it's a quality weapon, surely worth your expertise." I reached into my pocket and took out the speed loader she'd sold me the other day. "You can have this with it, too," I said as I pushed it over to her side of the counter.

Chrysanthemum blinked. "Are you sure you want to give up your only weapon? I mean, you didn't pick up anything else while you were gone, did you?"

I shook my head. "I can't use this. It's . . . it's too messy. And I'll be more likely to hurt myself with it than anypony else. And I don't even want to hurt anypony else. Just . . . just take it. I don't want it."

"I can't just take your only weapon," she said with a note of deep concern in her voice as she pushed the revolver to my side of the counter and took her hoof off it. "You can keep it. Service is on the house."

I was silent, looking down at the gun without touching it.

"Hun, you need—"

"I said I don't—" I stopped and lowered my voice. "I said I don't want it. Please. Just take it." I pushed it back across the counter to her.

Chrysanthemum exchanged a look with Starry. With a sigh, she nodded, taking the revolver in her magic and stowing it behind the counter.

The diner was uncomfortably quiet until the silence was broken by the sound of Starry's empty glass setting down on the counter, followed by the dull, metallic clink of a hooffull of caps. "Come on upstairs with me, Day. I wanna show you something in my room."

"Ooh. Sounds like fun. I knew you two would make a perfect couple!" Chrysanthemum snickered.

My ears blushing, I slid out of my seat and followed after Starry. She didn't respond to Chrysanthemum, just headed for the door at the back of the diner and started up the stairs that it led to.

"Don't worry about being too noisy! I'm a heavy sleeper!" Chrysanthemum called after us. I tried my best to ignore her and hurried after Starry.

At the top of the stairs was a short hallway with a couple doors on either side. Starry went to the door right by the landing. I noticed that the door had a half-dozen extra locks installed on it. A quick glance over the other doors in the hallway revealed Starry's room to be the only one so thoroughly secured.

"Don't worry about Chrys," she said quietly while she started unlocking the door.

"Huh?"

"About what she said about us as a couple. She's been trying to set me up with somepony since I first got here." She stifled a short laugh. "You shoulda seen the Steel Ranger she tried to set me up with before you." Starry finished the last deadbolt, opened the door to her room, and walked in. "Not at all my type."

She slipped off her saddlebags and tossed them onto the bed in the far corner, then unfastened her battle saddle and let it drop to the floor. Meanwhile, I stood still in the doorway, my jaw slacked as I just let my eyes wander around the room. Virtually every inch of every wall was covered with various documents—notes, files, pictures, prewar newspaper and magazine articles, blueprints, maps, and more. Some things were marked or highlighted and had barely-legible notes scrawled alongside them. Strings of different colors ran between the pins that held up each document, creating a network of connections that spanned all across the room as if to parody the web a spider might weave if she were in the midst of a fever dream, or psychedelic nightmare, or both.

I couldn't make sense of any of it. My eyes were drawn in every direction at once with no obvious starting point. I almost felt dizzy trying to take it all in. "What . . . what is all this . . . ?" I asked as Starry ushered me inside so she could close the door and lock it.

Starry moved back to her bags and rummaged around them. She pulled out some files and dropped them on the desk that was set up in the corner opposite the bed. "This is what I'm working on down here." She sat down, looking around the room slowly. "I'm down here on a mission to find—well, to find something really important." She hesitated, turning her gaze toward me.

"Before I tell you about it, though, come here. There's something I want to give you," she said as she turned back to the desk and reached into the bottom drawer. I walked over to her while she searched. "Where is . . . I know it's in . . . ah-hah!" She came up with a device in her hoof, holding it out to me. It looked something like the revolver I'd had, but different. Actually, it looked more like a smaller version of the laser rifle on her battle saddle.

"What is it?" I asked, hesitant to accept it.

"It's a magical energy pistol." She saw the look on my face. "I know you don't want to hurt anypony, Day, but please . . . you'll have to be able to protect yourself. And if you're going to be coming with me, I'll need to know I can count on you to back me up."

Sighing, I turned my head away and stared down at the floor.

"It's not like that revolver at all. Look:" I glanced back as she turned it over and flipped a latch. A side compartment opened up, and she slid a small energy cell out of it. "It runs on pure magical energy. You shoot somepony with this, it won't be messy like a conventional firearm. If you're lucky, a single shot can turn a whole pony into a pile of ash in an instant. They won't even feel a thing."

I cringed, chewing on my lip.

Starry sighed. "Look, Day, this will make it easier for you the next time you have to shoot somepony. And there will be a next time, I'm sorry to have to tell you, but you've been out here long enough that you know it's true. If there was a better way to keep you safe, I'd do it, but this is the best I can do: to help you protect yourself. Please, Day, for me? I'll do everything I can to make sure you don't have to use it, but when the time comes, I want to know you'll have something."

"Al—alright," I said, giving in. I took the pistol from Starry after she put the energy cell back in it. She gave me a few extra cells and a quick rundown on how to use the pistol, before I tucked it away in my saddlebag. I buried it at the bottom where I wouldn't be tempted to use it unless I absolutely had to, hoping it would be a long time before I needed it.

"Okay," Starry said, smiling, "now that that's taken care of, let me tell you about my mission here so you can help me out with it." She looked around the room and pointed to a blueprint on the wall above the bed. "Okay so that's—er . . . no." She redirected my attention to the newspaper article on the wall beside her. "So when the—" She frowned.

"You've never had to explain all this to somepony, have you?"

Starry cleared her throat. "Um. Well, no. I haven't. When did this all get so complicated?" She rubbed her chin, looking down at her desk while she tried to figure out how to explain. Then I saw her eyes drift over toward a strange contraption she had sitting on the desk. It looked like some kind of crude crown, but with wires running all around it, and an empty socket at the front. Her eyes lit up. "I know. I can show you where it all started."

I sat quietly, though confused, as I watched Starry open the top drawer of her desk and take out a small glass orb. It glowed faintly with a dim, olive green light.

"This is a memory orb," Starry explained. "It contains a copy of somepony's memory from before the bombs fell. With this recollector," she continued, pointing to the contraption on the desk, "you can view that memory as if you lived it yourself."

"Somepony's whole memory?" I asked, eyes wide.

"Oh, no! Not the whole thing!" Starry laughed a bit. "No. Just a part of it. It's not very long."

She led me over to an armchair. "It's completely safe," she assured me as set the device—the recollector—on my head. "It'll be like taking a nap, okay?" She looked at me while holding up the memory orb in her hoof, waiting for my consent.

I was somewhat skeptical that a single pony's memory from two hundred years ago would explain everything Starry had pinned up around the room. But I was certainly curious to see what all this was about. "Alright." I nodded.

Starry smiled and set the orb into the recollector's socket.

oooOOOooo

There was a flash of light, but it wasn't really a flash. It was more like I had just entered a very bright room after my eyes had been adjusted to the darkness. It only lasted for half a second, and then I saw . . . I saw the sky.

I was inside a building, but it was like nothing I could have ever imagined. There was a large open area, like the atrium in the stable, but it went up much, much higher. There were glass panels along the balconies and along the sides of stairways, letting me see all the ponies moving about. Most of them were pegasi, flying to and fro across the open area. And at the very top of the building was the open sky. Clear, beautiful blue sky with pure daylight—light from Celestia's sun, unobstructed by boundless cloud cover—that shone down into the building. I could feel the warm light on my face.

Except it wasn't my face, I realized, as my vision turned down to the room ahead of me. I was experiencing somepony's memory, and I couldn't move on my own. I was just following along for the ride. Something felt strange about the body I was in. I came to realize I was experiencing the memory of an earth pony mare.

It was an interesting experience: I honestly didn't really feel any differently, only when I really thought about it did it feel weird. But what I really did feel was the lack of various aches and bruises that I'd simply grown accustomed to. For the first time in almost as long as I could remember, I felt . . . uninjured.

Amid the general murmur of dozens of conversations going on around me was the sound of falling water. And as I—or we, or whomever I was inhabiting or whatever—as she moved forward into what must have been a lobby area for the building, I saw a large glass pane behind the front desk. Water ran down it, illuminated from below in a rainbow of hues.

"Can I help you?" asked the mare behind the desk. She was a unicorn with a cream-colored coat and a red and white striped mane that reminded me of a candy cane.

"Yes," my host answered as we approached the desk, "I'm looking for Rainbow Dash."

The secretary levitated a pair of reading glasses onto her face and looked down at a ledger. "Do you have an appointment?"

"Appointment? No, I—"

"Ms. Dash is very busy. You'll need an appointment to see her," the mare said curtly.

Clenching her teeth briefly, my host took a breath and explained, "No, see, I'm supposed to be her new assistant. It's my first day here, and—"

"Oh. I'm sorry. What's your name?"

I felt her eye twitch at the interruption. "I'm—"

My host stopped abruptly as she overheard a dozen voices calling out, "Ms. Dash!" She looked over to see a dense throng of ponies calling out questions as they all vied for attention.

"Never mind. I think I found her," my host said to the secretary before sprinting off to join the crowd.

She had to push and squirm her way through the crowd. The further in she got, the more tightly-packed everypony was. Fortunately for her, my host seemed to have a fairly small build and had a knack for navigating between everypony.

And then I saw her—the ministry mare herself: Rainbow Dash. I knew it was her immediately because it was her that everypony was gathering around, her attention they were all clamoring for. Her brilliant rainbow-colored mane and tail were hints too, as well as the uniform she wore; it bore several pins and medals, and equally as many creases, signs of how much service she had done for her nation, and how much she still did.

Rainbow Dash was a fairly mature mare, but aside from a few wrinkles around her eyes, undoubtedly brought on by stress more than age, her mane and coat were as colorful as they could ever be, and she had an incredible physique. She moved with a kind of grace that wasn't for show—she didn't have a model's deliberate elegance, but instead her movements were those of a trained athlete at the peak of her game. It was the kind of grace that came from efficient, controlled motions, entirely by muscle memory.

And what muscles she had! Not to say she was bulky, of course. Quite the opposite: she was sleek and toned, but I could see the tense, coiled springs that her muscles were. With a physique like that, there was no doubt that she lived up to her namesake.

"Ms. Dash!" my host called out, sprinting over to meet her.

The ministry mare turned her head to look at me—us—my host. The other ponies around her kept talking over each other. How anypony could make any sense of what was being said was beyond me.

"Ms. Dash, hi. I'm—"

"Talk fast, kid. I'm kind of busy, if you hadn't noticed," she said, leveling her magenta-colored eyes at us. She kept one ear turned back toward the others who were still talking.

My host grit her teeth. "Right. Sorry. I'm your new assistant. My na—"

"Assistant. Great. My office is on the top floor. I'll meet you there," Rainbow Dash said brusquely, turning her head back to the uniformed pegasus at her side. "No. I told you, I'm not going to just leave them out there. I never leave my friends behind, and my ministry won't leave its ponies behind either." Her wings fanned out, and he followed suit, the two of them launching themselves into the air and streaking off up the height of the building.

Suddenly, everything was quiet. The other earth ponies and unicorns who'd been crowding around Rainbow Dash slowly dispersed. My host was the only one who didn't move, craning her head up to follow her boss's trail as she soared to the upper floors.

"She's quite a sight, isn't she?" came a smooth, refined voice from behind. My host turned around to see who it was. I was surprised to see, and I suppose my host was as well, that it was not a pony. He had the head of an eagle and the body of a lion. He wore a dark, pinstriped suit which contrasted starkly with the brilliant, glossy, golden feathers of his avian half and the rich, tawny fur of his leonine half.

He was feeding a coin into a vending machine against the wall. With a jerk of his talon, the coin came back out of the machine while its display still registered the payment. He entered his selection and the machine dispensed it, being none the wiser, while he untied the thread from his finger and stuffed the trick coin into his breast pocket.

"Um . . . can I help you?" my host asked cautiously. Her head tilted as she watched him unwrap his stolen candy bar and bite into it with his beak.

"Maybe. But it'll be a while before I really need your help, kid." He flashed a disarming smile. "Never seen a gryphon before, have you?" We nodded. "Don't worry about staring, kid. I'm used to it." He turned to face us, and my host's eyes were drawn to his left wing, which we could now see was bandaged against his side.

"Oh my. What hap—"

"Dislocated my wing the other day. Silliest thing, really: I fell out a window. Can you believe it?" He laughed. "Don't worry about it, though. You know how it is: these things heal up fast. I'm sure I'll be flying no problem by the next time you see me."

My host blinked. "I'm sorry, I have to get going . . ."

"What a coincidence! Me too! Hey, we should go together. It'll make the ride more entertaining."

"No. I don't think you understand: I have to go meet my boss in her office, so I'm just going to—"

"You're going to go find Rainbow Dash. Yes, I know. I happen to be going that way too." He seemed to notice the uncomfortable, perplexed look on my host's face. "I overheard you introduce yourself to her," he explained. "Top floor is a long way without wings, so I figure we could take the elevator together." He jerked his thumb claw in the direction of the lobby, where the elevators were.

"I guess that's alright," my host replied, giving a small nod. There was something odd about this gryphon, and she seemed to have the same feeling about him that I did.

He led the way to the elevators and she followed.

After getting onto the elevator, the gryphon pushed the button for the top floor, and we were on our way. Once the elevator rose above the lobby ceiling, I was awestruck to see that it was a glass elevator, and I could see out into that marvelous, brightly-lit atrium full of shining glass and busy ponies of so many varied and vibrant colors.

Unfortunately for me, my host didn't seem as interested in the view. Instead she turned to look at the gryphon. "So, what exactly are you here for?" she asked.

"Me?" The gryphon paused, as if it hadn't been a rhetorical question. When my host didn't answer after a couple seconds, he continued, "Well, I'm a lawyer, but I don't really do anything glamorous. No, I'm just a glorified file clerk, really; the kind of person nobody will remember in a hundred years."

"And you're here because why?" she asked again, narrowing her eyes.

"Oh, nothing terribly important. Just some arcane technical administration paperwork had some discrepancies on it, and I had to come out here to try and clear it up. Better question is why you're here." He flashed a wry grin while holding eye contact.

"Me? I'm . . . Rainbow Dash's new assistant. It's my first day. That's why I'm here."

"But why? You're after something, aren't you? Trying to find your place?"

My host shuffled about on her hooves uncomfortably. "W—what are you? One of Pinkie's morale inspectors? I already went through a dozen background checks to get this job. Why are you—"

The gryphon held up his hand. "I'm not from the Ministry of Morale. I work at the Central Records Bureau in Canterlot. Relax. I just thought you might want to think about why you're really here. Too often, I find that people just go on about their lives without considering why they are where they are."

The elevator came to stop at the top floor, and the doors opened. My host hesitated, regarding the gryphon's peculiar manner for a moment before stepping out ahead of him. From the top floor, I could see that the building's central atrium wasn't actually open to the sky but had a glass ceiling. The sky above was still as clear and beautiful, though. I only wished I could have had more time to enjoy the view from the balcony, but we kept moving toward Rainbow Dash's office.

As we approached the office, there was a unicorn mare with a deep, scarlet coat and a vibrant, glossy, red mane done up into a bun. She wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and had an impatient scowl. She was standing outside the door, tapping her hoof while holding a document folder in her crimson magic.

My host smiled cheerfully at the mare. "Um, hello. Can I help you, Miss . . . ?"

"Scarlet Sunrise. I'm waiting to see Ms. Dash so I can turn in my department's project plan for approval." She narrowed her eyes, looking my host up and down. "And you are . . .?"

"I'm Ms. Dash's new assistant. My n—"

"Assistant. Wonderful." My host ground her teeth at the interruption. "Will you please see if she's in. I've been waiting a very long time." Scarlet looked over at the gryphon, regarding him coldly. "What are you doing here?"

"Just following up on some paperwork. You know that's all I ever get to do," he answered with a pleasant chuckle. "But what a happy coincidence that I should meet you again. And here of all places. I take it that the Ministry of Arcane Science didn't work out for you?"

Scarlet Sunrise rolled her eyes. "Everything with you is always a coincidence, isn't it?" She snorted and didn't respond to him any further. Instead, she returned her attention to my host. "Well? Are you going to see if your boss is in or not?"

"Sorry," my host answered, mumbling a snide "your highness" under her breath. She moved to the door, knocked gently, and tried the handle. It was unlocked, and she peeked inside. "Ms. Dash?" She opened the door the rest of the way and stepped into Rainbow Dash's office. She was probably as dumbstruck as I was at what she saw. "A turtle?"

"Tortoise," the gryphon corrected as he and Scarlet followed my host into the office.

Rainbow Dash was not there. Instead, on her desk, was a turtle, or tortoise, or whatever. On one side were a stack of files in a bin labeled "In" and on the other side was another stack labeled "Out." The tortoise was in the middle, slowly taking one file at a time from the inbox in his mouth, and pulling it down to the desk in front of him. He had a rubber stamp taped to one of his legs, and he'd open the file to the first page, step on it with the stamp, marking it "Approved," then close it, and move it over to the outbox.

Scarlet harrumphed. "Well, at least I know we can get the project started already." She floated her file over to the top of the inbox and then left without another word.

"Well, it looks like my time with you is over," said the gryphon, looking at his wrist, where he was not wearing a watch. He turned to face me directly. "I guess I'll have to meet you again later before I get to find Rainbow Dash. It's been fun meeting you."

oooOOOooo

The memory ended abruptly, and as I awoke from it, I was welcomed back into the present by the feeling of a dozen hooves beating down on my back and sides all at once. The myriad aches and bruises I carried were there to remind me of the world I really belonged in.

I sat up and looked around. It was strange, almost like I'd been in a dream. But the dream had been so vivid that the world around me now felt uncanny. My bruises were an unpleasant reassurance, however, that I was definitely not dreaming. Had Equestria really fallen this far? The past had been so bright, so full of color. Now I noticed how dark and dull this new world was. The stable had been matte gray everywhere, and the wasteland was a dusty brown.

Except for Starry. Her bright, light blue coat was a welcome sight.

She got up from her desk to check on me. "So what do you think?" she asked while taking the recollector off my head and removing the orb from its socket.

"I'm not sure. It was an incredible sight. Some strange stuff. But . . ." I looked around the walls. "I'm not sure what that was supposed to show me."

Starry put the recollector and the memory orb away, then turned back to me and smiled. "Well, the part at the end is the important part: You saw how Rainbow Dash wasn't in her office? And how she had her pet just stamping everything approved for her?"

I nodded.

"Rainbow Dash was never much for actually doing any of her actual duties as a minister. She let her ministry basically run itself. Those documents that were being stamped?" She trotted over to the wall by the bed, and put her hoof on a file folder there. "Most of them were pet projects submitted by her various department heads. They ran all kinds of research and development projects that weren't at all related to the ministry's actual purpose."

"Okay . . . I still don't see what—"

"Some of these projects were really questionable and probably illegal: mind control experiments, gene splicing, turning fillings into surveillance devices." She pointed from one document to another. "All of this was going on without any oversight. But when the bombs fell, and Rainbow Dash decided to abandon what little civilization we had left in the clouds, she went off on her own, like she could fix everything by herself. One of the things she did after all the official records lost track of her was to go around and check on all these projects that got away from her: she made sure they were either destroyed or shut down in a safe way."

"But what does any of that have to do with—"

"Day, I'm trying to tell you: my mission is to find Rainbow Dash."

I blinked. "What? But why? She's surely dead by now, why does it matter where she is or what happened to her?" I stopped for a moment. "And why tell me all this?"

Starry stopped to consider my questions. The excited grin that had grown across her face as she had been explaining everything slowly faded. "Well, I . . . it's my orders to look for her. But she was very important, and finding out what happened to her would be important to the Enclave. She had access to a lot of information and technology. Finding her might help us get access to that stuff. And, well, it would be a nice morale booster for everypony back home if we could announce that we'd found her. Make a big event out of updating the history books, you know?"

"But what do I have to do with all this?" I pressed.

"Oh. Well, it's just that I've been working on this all by myself. I've been out of contact for a while now, since my radio broke, and when I met you I thought . . . that maybe you could help me? And once we find her, I can take you with me back to the Enclave. I'm sure I can pull some strings to get you citizenship." She smiled. "It's safe up there, Day."

I didn't really know what to say to that at first. But then the obvious question came to mind: "Why can't we go there now? Can't we just fly up there?" I asked.

Starry frowned. "It's not that simple. The clouds are patrolled, and passage across them is very tightly controlled. If I tried to fly up there without proper authorization, I'd be shot down on sight. And even then, it's wouldn't exactly be easy to get you citizenship. The Enclave is officially closed to immigration. But if I can come back a hero—the mare who found Rainbow Dash—I'd have some favors I could cash in on."

"Oh. I see." I slouched down in the chair. I'd let myself get my hopes up when she had mentioned taking me to the Enclave. I should only be so lucky.

Starry must have seen my disappointment. "But hey, I'm sure I've been getting close now. And with your help, I'll bet we can finish this up a lot faster. So it won't be too long before I can take you above the clouds."

I looked up at her. She was smiling at me. I forced a smile in return for her. Then I let my eyes drift past her to the wall . . .

And suddenly, everything clicked. My eyes went wide as I realized what she was doing: It was a puzzle! The biggest, most complicated puzzle I'd ever seen! More than that, I saw how she'd managed to assemble this puzzle with so many of the pieces missing. She didn't need all the pieces, like how her cutie mark was a constellation: "You have to see what's not there," she had said. She was able to make the connections between seemingly unrelated places and events.

I had been wrong: it wasn't the weavings of an insane spider, it was a constellation that Starry had covered the walls with. My legs catapulted me out of my seat, and I rushed over to the desk. On the wall above it was a picture. It was her! Rainbow Dash. The picture was worn and faded, not doing justice to her vibrant, colorful mane, but it was her. And all the lines that Starry had strung around the room traced back to her.

"You see it, don't you?" Starry asked from behind me.

I nodded as I followed one string to a document on the next wall. From that one to the next, I asked Starry how she made these connections. She replied, modestly, "It just seemed obvious once I knew what I was looking for." For her, maybe, but I was amazed how, at every step, she'd been able to see where the next one would be, and had found confirmation of her theory every time when she had gotten there.

I continued poring over the documents Starry had arranged around the walls, tracing the lines between each one and the next. What had seemed an incomprehensible work of madness when I had first stepped into the room was now a brilliant masterpiece—a magnum opus in mosaic.

As I followed the threads back and forth across the room, I came to a dossier about Scarlet Sunrise, the mare from Rainbow Dash's office in the memory orb. Following a line from her, I came to a blueprint, page three of twelve. The other pages were missing. This page looked like a design for a massive underground complex. A bunker maybe? It had a lot of above-ground construction for just a bunker. It sure didn't look like a stable, but beyond that, I couldn't really be sure what it was. The only name on the blueprint was the project name: Sunstone.

Starry had left notes tacked to the blueprint: "where? find logistics" and "something to prove? check MAS, MOA records." I couldn't really make sense of it.

"Hey, Starry?" I asked. "What's up with this Sunstone thing?" I turned around to see that Starry had apparently gone to sleep while I was looking over her work. She was, once again, slumped over on her bed in a rather unflattering position: face-down, laying diagonally across the bed with her left foreleg hanging off one side, her left hind leg hanging off the foot of the bed.

Checking the time on my Pipbuck, I saw that it was already well-past midnight. So I decided it was probably a good time to get some rest myself. The armchair wasn't ideal, but there weren't exactly many other options. Still, my mind was racing with thoughts about everything that had happened that day. My third day in the wasteland.

Has it really only been that long since . . . ?

I guess . . . I don't know what I expected to find, what I expected to happen after I was exiled. Up until the stable door closed behind me, it had always seemed like exile and death were the same thing. The only thing I hadn't expected was to keep living—to find a new life outside.

To live to regret what I'd had to do . . .

But here I am, alive, with a place to stay, and with somepony to help me. I'm moving on with my life, and this search for Rainbow Dash actually sounds exciting. It's the biggest puzzle I've ever seen, with pieces scattered all across Equestria. I really think I can help Starry with this. I want to help her, to be a part of this. It's enough to let me just forget about the stable and what happened there. I can't wait for tomorrow, to see what the new day has in store.

Chapter 6: The Masks We Wear

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but

The truth in masquerade.

I woke up early; the armchair in Starry's room hadn't exactly been comfortable. Starry was still asleep—with her head buried under her pillow and her blanket tangled around her hind legs, it looked like she needed to sleep in. Not wanting to wake her to find out what I should be doing, I decided to try fixing the two-way radio I noticed on her desk—having remembered Starry saying it was broken.

There hadn't seemed to be anything really wrong with it aside from a few loose components, so I tightened them down and it worked just fine, though the reception was pretty poor.

But through the static, I could make out a raspy voice speaking in slow, mournful tones:

Beware the makers of history, kid. They know not their own.

I stared at the radio, wondering if there was more, but all I heard was static. It was a strange transmission, like the one I'd heard on my Pipbuck during my first night under the pouring rain. But this time I didn't have to just listen.

Hesitantly, I put my hoof on the transmit button and pushed it down. "H-hello?" I spoke into the microphone.

There was a pause with only more static before a voice—different from the first; he sounded young, maybe my age—came on over the radio: "Who's on this channel? Identify yourself, over," the voice barked. There was a familiar tone to his voice, one I'd heard from the senior engineers in maintenance whenever I'd interrupted them during one of their . . . breaks.

"Day? What are—" I looked up to see Starry lifting herself out of bed. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she squinted as though even the dim light that filtered in through the boarded-up window behind me were a blinding glare. But then her eyes opened wide as she saw me at the radio, and she leaped out of bed, almost tripping over her own hooves as she stumbled over and snatched the microphone away from me.

"Watchtower, this is Constellation. Standby," she groaned into the radio.

"Roger, Constellation. You've missed seven check-ins. No messages pending. Watchtower standing by, over."

Starry clicked the radio off and stood there, looking down at me. "What are you doing playing with my radio?"

I felt my ears flush hotly as they folded back. I lowered my head. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I just wanted to fix it for you. It wasn't badly broken. I—"

Starry cut me off by holding up her hoof. She mumbled something to herself and slowly stumbled back to the bed. After fumbling around with her saddlebag, she pulled out her aspirin bottle and a full bottle of scotch. I sat at the desk quietly while she shook out a tablet into her hoof and then swallowed it down with a swig from her bottle. She sat there, silent for a moment, with her eyes closed.

"Thank you, Day, for fixing the radio for me." Starry opened her eyes and turned her head to look at me, her eyes no longer bloodshot. She smiled. "Why don't you go downstairs and have Chrys make you something for breakfast. I'll be down in a minute."

I gave a small nod. "Okay, ma'am—"

"Starry," she corrected me.

"Starry. I'll see you downstairs," I said, and made my way to the door. I unlocked all the deadbolts but glanced back over my shoulder at Starry. She shooed me out with a smile and a wave of her hoof as she moved back to the radio. So I left her alone and headed down to the diner.

Downstairs, I saw Chrysanthemum as she was clearing empty bottles off the table with the passed out pony in the corner. She collected the bottles in her chartreuse aura and paused for a moment, looking over the stallion, then gently brushed a hoof along his mane. He stirred a bit, possibly the only sign of life I'd seen from him since the first time I set foot inside the diner. and Chrysanthemum left him alone.

"Oh. Good morning, Day," she said cheerfully, on her way back behind the bar. She saw me looking over at the stallion in the corner. "He lost his wife several months back. Poor thing. I set them up together. I try to help, but there isn't much I can do when all he wants is to drink himself to sleep."

"You just let him do that?"

"What else is there? Throw him out in the rain?" She shrugged. "I keep him warm, and sometimes when he's lucid enough, I give him a shoulder to cry on."

She turned to me and smiled. "But how about you? Did y'all have a Lucky Night?" she asked with a wink.

My wings bristled and I cringed. Her innuendo I could ignore, but that . . . "Please don't use that word."

"What? Lucky? It's your name, isn't it? Lucky Day? Starry told me last night. I think it's cute the way you tried to hide it from me."

I sat at the bar and slumped down with my face on the counter. "Can I just get something to eat, please, Miss Chrysanthemum?"

"Aw, hun, don't be so formal with me. Really. Just call me Chrys."

I glanced up at her with my head still resting on the countertop. "Will you forget what Starry told you about my name? Chrys?"

"Certainly!" She smiled cheerfully. "Now, for something to eat . . . I've got these, though I'm sure it's nothing as fancy as what they fed y'all in the stable." She reached under the bar and pulled a packet about half the size of a loaf of bread and set it down in front of me. "Managed to trade for a couple crates of these last week."

"What is it?"

"It's an MRE: Meal, Ready-to-Eat. From what I hear, they were used by the old Equestrian military as field rations. It's basically a brick of processed cornmeal with chunks of dehydrated fruit mixed in. Fifty caps."

Assuming it was a fair price, I was about to pay with the caps I'd earned the previous night fixing the generator when I realized I had left the caps in my saddlebag back in the room.

"Don't worry about it, hon. I know you're good for it." Chrysanthemum smiled, pushing the MRE across the counter to me.

I thanked her and opened the package. It certainly didn't look like much, and "a brick" turned out to be a pretty apt description for the two hundred year old ration. Still, as I bit off pieces of it, I found it to be mostly tasteless, but satisfying.

A loud crash came from upstairs, causing me and Chrysanthemum to jump. And no sooner had it occurred to me that Starry could be hurt than I was already halfway up the stairs, calling out: "Starry!"

Chrysanthemum followed right behind me as I burst through the door into Starry's room. We stood there, breathless, my chest pounding as we looked over the scene: The floor was a mess of radio parts, scattered in all directions from where it had hit the floor beside the desk.

Starry was standing over the shattered husk of the radio, her wings flared out in shock at our sudden intrusion.

"What happened? Are you okay?" I asked.

Starry blinked and looked down at the smashed radio. "I . . . everything's fine, Day. I just—the radio. It, uh, fell."

"Fell?" I echoed. How many times had I explained my injuries in the stable as "I fell"?

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Day." She forced a laugh. "It was so stupid of me: I was just reaching across the desk and just knocked it over." She knelt down to start gathering up all the broken pieces. "You did such a nice job of fixing it for me and now look at it. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Starry," I told her.

I closed my eyes, then took a slow breath in. But it wasn't really okay, was it? Did she not trust me for some reason? Was she just trying to spare my feelings about something? Or was she trying to protect herself? From what? Me?

But I couldn't call her out on it. How could I? Without her, I'd be all alone. Whatever had happened, it wasn't worth possibly losing her over it. I had to stick with her. I had to get along. So it was really the best thing for me to do.

It was a lie, and I knew it. But what else could I do? I opened my eyes and breathed out. "It's okay," I repeated the sweet nothing and smiled as I knelt down to help her pick up the pieces.

Chrysanthemum beat me to it, though, sweeping up all the little pieces into her chartreuse aura and depositing them on top of the desk. Her attention was on the room, however; her face was slacked while her eyes, wide, wandered across the walls. I imagined it was probably the same look I'd had when I had first seen the inside of Starry's room. "What have you been doing up here, Starry?" Chrysanthemum asked.

"You know I've been looking for something. Well, this is all just part of how I'm searching. Oh! Actually, that reminds me:" Starry ran over to the map on the wall. "Day, I know where to go next. The Sunstone facility is here." She tapped her hoof on the map. "I figured it out last night from the logistics records I got from the office building. You know: the one where we met? Well, I was right: I was able to correlate the shipments of materials with its construction and then cross reference with the shipping company records that I have to find out where it is. So that's where we should go next. That's where the trail leads. We can fly there in a couple hours."

"Um, Starry . . ."

"We'll be able to check it out," she kept talking, her voice running so fast that I was barely able to follow what she was saying.

"Starry . . ."

"And be back here with the next clue—"

"Starry!"

Finally, she stopped and turned back to me. "What is it?"

I glanced over at my bandaged wing. "I don't think I can make a flight that long." It had been only a couple days, and though my wing wasn't sore anymore, I knew from the last time it had been dislocated that I wouldn't be capable of more than a short flight for at least a week. At least, not without risking further injury.

Starry blinked at me a few times, then turned back to the map. "Okay. Okay. We can make it on hoof. It'll take a bit longer, maybe a whole day to get there . . . we can save some time if we cut through this forest here." She ran her hoof across part of the map.

"That's a dangerous place," Chrysanthemum spoke up. "You'd be better off going the long way around."

Starry looked from Chrysanthemum to me and frowned. "I think the less time we spend on open ground, the better, with the way things have been going. I'm sure we can handle whatever's in the forest."

Chrysanthemum shuffled around on her hooves. "Then . . . then at least let me help guide you."

"You know your way around there?" Starry furrowed her brow.

"Sort of—yes. I used to date one of the merchants who came here to trade with Mum. Sometimes I traveled with him, and he made his route through the forest." She bit her lip. "It's been a while, but I'm sure I can help y'all avoid the dangers in there. And 'sides: the prospectors who live around here won't be back for another couple days yet. I could stand to get out for a while."

"How much does your guidance cost?" Starry asked.

"Oh, don't worry about it, hun," Chrys smiled. "There'll be salvage out there, right? I can just help myself while we're out there. I'm no stranger to prospecting myself."

"Alright." Starry nodded. "Thank you, Chrys. We'll be happy to have you along." She brushed a few of her stray hairs back under her cap. "Alright, let's get ready and head out, then. We've got a long way to go."

***

There had been no definite line marking the edge of the forest. As we had walked, we could see the forest ahead: At a distance, it looked to be a dense wall of trees that somehow always seemed to be just ahead of us but never got any closer. The wall only grew in height until the towering trees loomed over us while still never seeming to draw any closer. Even as we'd pass one tree, then another, then a few more, it always seemed to be out on the horizon.

And yet, when I glanced behind us, I realized that it ran across every horizon, and suddenly we were deep in the forest, having entered  it at some point along the way, but exactly which point, I couldn't remember. It had simply crept up and surrounded us without our knowing.

There were no birds, no small animals—or large ones for that matter. Just trees as far as I could see. The sky above was just barely visible through the high boughs, where most of the leaves still clung to their parent branches. Underfoot were dried, mulching leaves and scattered branches. The sound of those leaves and branches crackling and snapping under our steps was broken up every so often when a gust of wind would roll through the forest, and the tired old trees would sway and creak, as if threatening to crash down on us.

"Keep your eyes out for movement among the trees," Chrysanthemum cautioned us as she led the way. "The best thing we can do is try to . . . to avoid . . ." She stopped for a moment and put a hoof to her forehead as she cringed.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

Chrysanthemum gave a vigorous shake of her head and took a deep breath. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Um." She looked around, her ears twitching. "Do you hear that?"

Starry and I both stood still, craning our ears around. But all I heard was the slow creaking of the trees.

"Hear what?" Starry asked.

Chrysanthemum shook her head again. "Nothing. Just a . . . ringing—ringing in my ears. It's Nothing. Come on. Let's not waste time." She set off again, a slight hurry in her step

I exchanged a glance with Starry, concerned that something might be wrong with Chrys, but not knowing any way to help. Starry shrugged a little and nodded. "Come on." And we pressed on deeper into the foreboding wilderness.

"Are y'all sure you don't hear that?" Chrysanthemum asked again after a short while.

Starry and I both shook our heads. Neither of us heard anything.

"Do you wanna stop for a rest?" I suggested. "We've been walking all morning, maybe—"

"No," Chrysanthemum answered curtly. "Thank you. No. I . . . I think we should keep going until we're out of the forest."

Starry glanced over her shoulder, her ears perked up. We all stood silently until Starry moved in closer to us, whispering, "I think we're being followed. We should definitely keep moving. Stay on your guard. Day, where's the pistol I gave you?"

"It's in my saddlebag."

"Well, get it out."

"But I—"

"Don't argue with me. Do it," she said sternly. 

I closed my mouth and nodded quietly as I reached back into my saddlebag and dug out the laser pistol which Starry had given me the night before. I tucked it into the front pocket of my stable uniform, and Starry nodded in approval.

Chrys floated out a pair of small pistols from her own bags. They wavered slightly as she held them in her chartreuse aura. She winced briefly and shook her head again before nodding to Starry. "Let's keep moving."

Every dry leaf and every snapped twig seemed to get louder, letting the entire forest know where we were with every step we took. If there were monsters lurking among the trees, they surely knew that we had intruded. The forest felt somehow alive and like it were very much aware of us. But for all I could see, and for all I could hear, we were alone. There was an aching feeling in my stomach, a gnawing little doubt that ran up my spine to scream in my ear: "There is something out there!"

As we continued further, Chrysanthemum began to stumble and waver from side to side. Her magic imploded, dropping her pistols to the ground, and she stopped to lean against a tree. She gave a dry heave and let out an agonized gasp.

"Chrys, what's wrong?" Starry asked, moving toward Chrysanthemum's side, but keeping her eyes and ears scanning around us.

"Dizzy," Chrysanthemum groaned. "Like knives in my ears." She gave another dry heave.

"Day, help her up. We're going back to the diner," Starry commanded.

As I approached Chrysanthemum, I suddenly found myself lying on the ground. It all happened so quickly that it took me a moment to process what had happened: Somepony had thrust me aside after dropping out of the trees and landing between me and Chrys.

With a flick of his hoof out from under his cloak, he threw some kind of green, glowing powder into Chrysanthemum's face while I was just getting back on my hooves. Chrys instantly fell back, choking and gasping for air, and I—I just stood there. I watched her writhing on the ground.

Starry was quick to act, however, rushing toward the cloaked figure. She took a swing at his head, but he ducked under her hoof.

"Stay your aggression," came his voice from under his cowl. He hopped to the side nimbly as Starry rounded to kick at him with her back hooves but she missed again. "Your friend is gone; fiend unmasked. Look, see for yourself." Again he dodged Starry as she tried for a flying tackle but caught only a pile of dry leaves and twigs.  The cloaked figure stood over Starry and pointed his hoof.

I looked where he pointed, back at Chrysanthemum. What I saw . . .

Where Chrys had been, I saw something else. She had a black, leathery hide; eyes without pupils, just solid, opalescent blue; and long, sharp fangs that stuck out from the corners of her mouth. Her horn had a similarly dangerous-looking shape, and in place of the long, bouncy curls of Chrys's mane, there was instead a short, straight, silky gray mane. Delicate, gossamer wings protruded from her back, buzzing and twitching erratically.

Starry had stopped trying to fight the cloaked figure as she too looked back at Chrysanthemum to see what she had turned into. We were silent as we watched her. She stopped choking and slowly sat up when she looked down at herself and saw what we saw.

"No . . . No. No, no!" She looked up at us. "I—I can't—I'm not—" She faced the cloaked figure. "You! What did you do to me?" Chrysanthemum cringed and her horn flared chartreuse, but only for a moment before imploding. "What did you do to me!" she screamed.

"Your true face, revealed; your masquerade uncovered," he answered, stepping forward slowly. "Prey on us no more." He pulled back his hood to reveal his striped visage and eyes that boiled with an intent . . . an intent I'd seen before. I'd seen it in the eyes of security ponies inside the stable. Never interfere with security; just keep your head down and get along.

Everything I'd ever known told me to stay out of it—to just let it happen and move on, forget about it. But as I looked down at Chrys as she lay there cowering helplessly, with tears rolling down her cheeks . . .

"Wait! She's our friend. She's done nothing wrong!" I pleaded with the cloaked zebra.

He stopped and turned to face me, his head tilted to one side. "I didn't think ponies spoke our language. But that changes nothing." He pointed a hoof at Chrysanthemum. "Do you see what she is?"

"I see that she's afraid!"

"What are you?" Starry demanded, looming over Chrysanthemum.

"I'm Chrys! The same Chrys you've always known!" she pleaded. "Starry, please! I'm me—I'm still me . . . I've always been me . . ."

"She is a monster. I must keep her, however. There are more to find," the zebra said.

"I'm not a monster!" Chrysanthemum cried, burying her face in her hooves. "Not a monster . . . not a monster . . ."

"Stop! Both of you!" I shoved past the zebra and Starry to stand between them and Chrysanthemum, my good wing flared out. My temples pounded with every beat of my heart. Each thundering pulse was like a loudspeaker inside my ears: "You have to get along . . . It's important to get along," it rang, commanding me to mind my place, not stand in the way, and to let Security do its job. Inside the stable I would never have dreamed to stand between Security and somepony I barely knew. But seeing Chrys like that—like a small, innocent, helpless little foal . . . I fought against the pounding in my head, the pounding which told me to stand by and just let them do what they wanted. I had to protect her.

"I won't let you hurt her," I said. With the way my heart was racing, I felt like I might pass out. It took all the effort I had just to keep my knees from buckling as my legs shook.

Starry, to my surprise, backed up a step. Her eyes were wide as she stared at me. The zebra didn't back off, though. "She feeds on my tribe!" he shouted. "She, her kind, feast, we suffer. I will see it end!"

"No! I don't! It's not me!" Chrysanthemum yelled back. "I . . . I'm not part of . . . that . . ."

I glanced back at her over my shoulder and watched as she shakily got back on her hooves. "Part of what?" I asked. "Chrys, what's he talking about?"

She looked around cautiously and trembled. "We're not safe here. Please, I'll—I'll tell you everything, just . . . we can't stay here." She cringed as her horn flared impotently again. "And I need to change forms! I can't . . . I can't be like this. I feel . . . wrong."

The zebra hesitated. He lowered his eyes for a moment before he reached under his cloak and brought out a small cloth rag. "Wipe away the dust; magic will come back to you. But betray us not."

I took the rag and turned to face Chrysanthemum. She tried to reach for the rag with her magic, but it again imploded on her. "Here, let me," I said, reaching toward her, but I stopped when she ducked away from me. "It's alright, I won't hurt you," I reassured her.

She took a shaky breath and nodded, closing her eyes. I sat down in front of her and got a closer look. I could see the green powder that the zebra had hit her with. It sparkled like glitter in the dim light that trickled through the forest canopy. Gently, I started wiping it off her face. She grimaced, and I wasn't sure if it was because of my touch or if maybe the powder was hurting her, but as I got to her horn and cleaned the little green flecks off of it, her face relaxed.

I sat back and smiled at her. "I think that's all of it. Can you use your magic now?" I asked.

Chrysanthemum opened her eyes and looked at me. She blinked a couple times before her horn shimmered with her bright chartreuse aura. Her magic flashed around her, and she stood there, looking like she always had, with her vibrant green coat and her blue and white mane, styled in long, bouncy curls. She looked down at herself and let out a sigh. "Thank you, Day," she said, smiling back at me.

She winced suddenly, putting her hooves to her ears. "That noise! Make it stop!"

"What noise? What are you doing to her?" I turned around to face the zebra.

From under his cloak, he brought out a small polished stone, set with a yellow gem and with arcane runes etched into it. "It must be the effect of the repellant talisman I made. She's the first I've seen react to it."

"So turn it off!"

He hesitated. "It can't be turned off. Not without destroying it."

"Do it!"

"It's the only one I have. It took months to make. We'll need it to find others like her: the ones who have been tormenting my tribe."

Behind me, Chrysanthemum let out an agonized groan.

"It bothers her only when she wears her mask. She can go without it."

"Chrys?" I turned back to her. She was doubled over, clutching at her ears as she writhed on the ground. "Chrys, if you change back, it'll go away."

"No!" she yelled through gritted teeth. "You don't . . . understand." She spat out her words between pained gasps for breath. "This hurts . . . but that other . . . body feels . . . wrong! I can't!"

"Suffering like this, you can end it any time. Yet you endure—why?" The zebra looked Chrys over with a skeptical gaze.

Chrys forced herself up to look the zebra in the eye. "If you had to spend your whole life trying to escape what you were born as . . ." She grimaced, and for a moment she looked ready to pass out. Her normally vibrant color had turned pale, and beads of sweat ran down her face and neck. "What would you suffer just so you could be yourself?"

The zebra was silent for a moment of careful consideration then his brow furrowed. "Whispers in my ear. You who could be anything, how can I trust you?"

"Please, sir," I said, my head bowed and my ears splayed. "Chrys has been kind to me since I met her. She's helped others, and she's helped me. Please, don't make her suffer."

Behind me, Chrys laid back down. She clutched at her stomach as convulsive dry-heaves wracked her body.

The zebra looked at me, his eyes wide in shock. After a moment, he glanced down at the talisman in his hoof. He sighed and dropped it on the ground, then stomped it under his hoof. The gemstone cracked with a small flash of light.

Almost instantly, Chrys's pained groans stopped, and I watched as she shakily got back to her feet. Her color returned slowly as she wiped the sweat and tears from her face. After a few slow breaths to steady herself, she looked up at me and smiled. And then she hugged me.

I winced slightly as she threw her forelegs around my neck and nuzzled my cheek. "Thank you," she whispered then looked over at the zebra. "I'm so sorry for what they're doing to y'all." She took a deep breath, and I felt her embrace tighten around me briefly before she let go. "I said I'd tell you everything, and I will. But we have to go somewhere safe first."

"Someplace safe indeed," he replied. "Follow me and do not stray. We'll go to my home."

"Hold on, now," Starry said as she pulled me aside. "Day, you know we can't go around solving everyone else's problems; we have our own to deal with."

I looked up at her. "But, ma'am . . . Starry . . . this is our problem, isn't it? We need to get through the forest, but there's something out there and Chrys is the only one of us who knows anything about it."

"So let her stay and deal with it. We'll go back the way we came and go around the forest." Starry sighed and pulled out her canteen for a drink. "It'll take longer, but at least we'll know what we're up against out there."

I fell back a half-step. "Just . . . leave?" I glanced back over my shoulder at Chrys. She stood cautiously away from everypony else, with her back against a tree. I felt a tightness grip my chest like a claw pulling on my breastbone. "We can't just abandon her! She's our friend!"

Starry took another sip. "I don't even know what she is anymore. And we certainly don't owe this zebra anything."

I backed up another half-step. I felt as if I were going to be sick. No matter what I did, it would mean losing somepony: If I went with Starry, we'd leave Chrys behind. If I stayed with Chrys, Starry would leave me. I'd already lost everything from the stable, I had just started rebuilding my life outside, and now I was about to start losing it again.

My legs tingled with hundreds of little pinpricks, and I struggled to keep my breathing steady. With a glance over my shoulder at Chrys, I gave Starry my decision. "I can't leave," I told her. "I won't leave." I sighed and hung my head, knowing that I'd be moving on without Starry.

"Day . . ." I looked up at Starry. The silver bars pinned to her collar glinted in the cold, sparse light that filtered down through the trees. She took another drink from her canteen. "Alright, Day," she sighed. "You have a point: this is the easiest way to get to the Sunstone facility." Starry approached the zebra. "You can help us get through this forest?"

"This, I do not know," he answered with a shake of his head. "Masked hunters live in shadows. Your friend will explain." He nodded toward Chrys, and then continued, "Make hunters hunted; make free my tribe, only that—" He stomped his hoof. "Will make clear your way."

Starry gave a slow nod. "Okay . . . that sounded enough like a 'yes' to me. Lead the way. Come on, Day, let's get moving. Chrys, or whoever you are—"

"Starry, please! I'm still me. I'm the same Chrys you've always known."

"You'll go ahead of me where I can keep an eye on you," Starry said with a note of finality in her voice. Chrys didn't argue. She hung her head and took her place behind the zebra while Starry and I followed behind her and we started walking through the forest again.

During the walk, the silence was broken only by a few brief moments of conversation. The zebra introduced himself as Kijiba. And Starry remarked how strange it was that I could speak the zebras' language. A large portion of the stable's population were zebras, I explained; everypony there spoke both languages fluently. Perhaps it was the just the mood we were all in, or maybe Starry thought better of asking more about the stable, but whatever it was, the conversation ended there.

After a while of traveling deeper still into the forest—all the while, glancing over our shoulders and listening for another ambush—the dark, stoic trees that loomed all around us gave way into a clearing. Even with the cloud cover, the light of day, however muted, was a welcome sight as we emerged from the forest canopy's shadow.

The clearing was populated with a number of huts built from wooden boards and thatched roofs. The huts looked old and poorly maintained; on every one of them I could see mold growing on rotten wood and holes in the thatching. There was no glass in any of the windows, leaving them open to the air with its humid oppression.

Each hut had its own small—I hesitate to call it a garden—they were more like small patches of tilled soil where meager amounts of various wheats and grains grew amid tangles of weeds. The village was quiet and deathly still, such that the slightest movement caught my eye as we passed along the outskirts: From behind the broken window shutter, a zebra foal's curious eyes peeked out to watch us before his mother pulled him away into the shadows. Another zebra glared at us from behind his small plot of crops. His face was gaunt, with dark shadows under his eyes. Through the stalks of grain he was tending, I could see that his body was practically emaciated, as though he could barely grow enough to feed himself.

There were other villagers about, but those who didn't retreat into their homes greeted us with the same cold, spiteful glares. Yet it didn't seem like our presence had at all interrupted their normal activities; as if their whole lives were spent exchanging looks of pure contempt and barely-restrained malice toward one another.

"Do not pay them heed," Kijiba said. "Their stares are as much for me," he continued, "as they are for you."

"Why?" I asked.

Kijiba didn't answer right away. I almost thought he was ignoring the question before he spoke up. "I am . . . unwelcome. Traditions, I don't follow. So they think me mad."

"Why don't you leave?" Starry asked.

"And where would I go? This has been my only home. Here is all I know," he answered bitterly. "My home, my people; even being unwanted—" He glanced back at us over his shoulder. "Could you leave your home?"

Nopony said anything more, and Kijiba continued leading us in silence. But I had to wonder about my own home—or, rather, the fact that I didn't have one anymore. What Kijiba had said was right; even unwanted, I could never have simply left. It had been the circumstances that had forced me to leave, and I would give anything to go back. Well, almost anything . . . I couldn't take back what I'd done. It had been too important, and I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't done it.

I just hadn't expected I'd have to live with myself after I had done it.

Trailblazer had mentioned having to learn to live again after his exile, and I suppose that's what I had to do myself. I had to leave my old life behind and find a new one for myself. In a way, I had died when the stable door closed behind me, but instead of passing on to live with the goddesses above, I was left to wander the wasteland as a ghost, lost and searching for . . . something. I needed to accept that my life had ended so I could move on.

And I tried to. But somehow it seemed that the wasteland was always conspiring to remind me of what I'd done . . . of what I'd lost.

As we walked on, we passed by a mare, but unlike the other inhabitants of the village, she didn't keep her distance and instead approached me. She wasn't old, but her face was wrinkled and her mane drooped listlessly over one side of her neck. Her left eye was bruised and swollen shut, and she favored her left foreleg as she walked. Her good eye caught mine and I stood still while she came closer until her face was right in front of mine. I grimaced at the smell of her breath but held still in her gaze.

"What is this that, with my eye, I do see? Some little bird, fallen out from his tree?" The mare scowled at me. "Fly home, little bird, back home to your nest. For you, do you not think, that would be best?"

"I . . . can't go home," I told her. "They won't let me come back."

Her wrinkled brow furrowed as she glared at me. Without saying anything more, she simply snorted and pushed her way past me.

I stood there in a bit of a daze. Something about the encounter with that mare had felt very unsettling, and left me with a cold shiver running down my back. I snapped out of it when Kijiba turned back to get me.

"Is something the matter?" he asked.

"That mare," I said, pointing toward her; she hadn't yet gotten very far with her limp, "she . . . was telling me to leave."

Kijiba looked past me at the mare. He harrumphed. "Ignore her. Her husband disappeared a few days ago. Right after she got that limp and black eye."

My eyes went wide at that. "Are you suggesting her husband did that to her? And that . . . she . . ." I leaned in closer to Kijiba and lowered my voice to a whisper, "Did she murder him?"

Kijiba's eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips, taking a moment before he answered. "It's not safe to talk here. Let's keep moving. We can speak more freely at my home."

I nodded, and we continued on.

***

Kijiba's hut was noticeably different from the rest of the village. It was built into the hollowed out trunk of a massive old tree, with no outward signs of decay, and not only did he have what I would call a proper garden, but there was also a flower garden with an entire rainbow growing in it.

Inside the tree was only a single room. The air was thick with the scent of moldy pages, mixed with the fragrance of dried flower petals.

The room was crowded with all four of us, but there was space enough to move around comfortably, if only barely. Starry stood beside me nearest to the door while Kijiba sat down by his table, and Chrys stood in the center. Our eyes fell on her.

"Just what the hell are you?" Starry demanded.

"I'm . . ." Chrys chewed on her bottom lip and sighed. "I'm . . . a changeling. I can turn myself into almost any animal."

"Not just animal, but any pony she wants. Her disguise—perfect." Kijiba was quick to add.

Starry's eyes narrowed. "So was there another pony out there who looked like this? What did you do to her?"

"It's not like that! This is me! Just . . . me."

"So you've been tricking us the whole time. That line you fed us about traveling with a trader through this forest? That never happened, did it?"

Chrys looked away.

"And I bet that cute little story about Mum taking you in wasn't true either."

"No! That was true! I never lied to you before!"

"You were always lying to us! You let us believe you were a pony."

"I am a pony!" Chrysanthemum cried.

Kijiba cut Starry off before she could yell at Chrys again. "You wear this mask; you wish you were pony. Lies to tell the truth?"

Chrys choked back a sob and wiped her fetlock across her nose. "I've lived almost my whole life like this—like a pony."

"But you're not a pony," Starry countered. "You don't even have a real cutie mark. It's fake just like everything else about you."

"I wanted a cutie mark as much as any filly or colt does! I tried so many things, hoping desperately that maybe if I were good enough at one thing, I could get a real cutie mark like everypony else. That if I just wanted it hard enough, that it would make me a real pony." She let out a sound that was something caught between a cry and a laugh. "That never happened. But I really do have a talent for matchmaking. Starry, you've seen the ponies at the diner: every couple there was put together by me, and none of them could be happier."

She looked up at Starry. "You remember Scrap Yard and Rubble, right? Remember how sweet her laugh is? Oh, and he had such a great sense of humor! It was like nothing in the wasteland could ever take away his smile." She closed her eyes and let out a wistful sigh. "I set them up together when I was just a filly. When I watched them share their first kiss, I felt something—a chill, a tingle, it was like opening my eyes for the very first time. I almost broke down crying in front of everypony in the diner when I looked back and still didn't see anything on my flank." Chrys sobbed again then took a deep breath and looked up at us. "That's when I accepted that I'd never get the cutie mark I knew I was supposed to have. So I made this one up:" She turned to show her flank. "Two roses, entwined together in a heart. Because all I want to do is bring ponies together in love. Is that so wrong?"

The room was quiet except for Chrysanthemum's sniffling. I found myself questioning what it really meant to be a pony. If she lived as one, thought of herself as one, was I in any position to say otherwise? As she was, she was indistinguishable from any other pony. If that didn't make her a pony, then what did?

While Starry seemed, at best, unconvinced, I decided then that if Chrys said she was a pony, I would believe her.

"I don't understand." I turned to Kijiba. "You said there are others like her, and they feed on your tribe?"

He nodded. "I read in my books; masked monsters that feed on love. They feed, and we starve."

"No, that's not what they're doing to you." Chrys wiped the tears away from her eyes. "There's no love in the air here. It tastes foul. Others like—" She grimaced and bit her lip. "Others like . . . me could never survive here."

"But the books—"

"Were printed two centuries ago. These changelings here have adapted to a world where bitter emotions flourish." Chrys paused, turning her head to look at each of us. She knew the question we all undoubtedly had on our minds, and with a sigh, she answered what went unasked. "I was born during the early days of the war. I don't remember much from back then, just overhearing my parents talk about plans to wait it out. We were just going to go to sleep for a while—a torpor." Tears began welling up in her eyes again. "The last thing I remember is my mother singing to me to sleep . . . I can't even remember the song . . . and then I blinked and she was gone. And so was my whole world—everything, all of it, just gone! Two hundred years in the blink of an eye! And I was still just a little filly."

Chrys closed her eyes tightly and stifled a sob through gritted teeth. "I woke up here, in this forest, looking up into the eyes of a queen with her hive buzzing all around me. I can hear them now—their shrills and chitters are everywhere, all around us. They were watching us when you exposed me, and now they know I'm here!" She collapsed onto the floor and buried her face under her forelegs as she cried. "I'm sorry! I thought I could lead you around them so they wouldn't find us, but it's too late!"

"Chrys." Starry stepped forward, looming over her. "Chrys, look at me. This is very important: What do they want?"

Chrysanthemum lowered her hooves away from her face. Her eyes were bloodshot. "They want me back," she sniffled. "She wants me back—the queen. I ran away when I was still little. The air here—I can't stand it. They keep everyone in the village on edge and feed off your hate for each other."

Starry pulled out her canteen and took a long drink from it. She looked down at Chrys who was still sobbing on the floor. "I assume," she said, pausing to take another drink, "that we won't be able to simply leave now, will we?"

Chrys shook her head.

"Wonderful." Starry gave an exasperated sigh. "You got us into a real mess here. So what are we supposed to do about it?"

"We have to fight them," Kijiba answered. "My people will believe me; now that I have you."

"No!" Chrys sat up. "I never want to change back ever again. Certainly not so you can trot me out on display and turn the whole village against me."

"We don't really have a choice," Starry said. "The four of us are hardly an army."

"And neither is this village," Chrys argued. "You saw them out there, how they live—they're sick and hungry, and I can taste the malice in the air. Can't you? A single changeling could have them all entranced before they even know what's happening—" Her face turned pale. "I hear them getting closer! They'll turn the whole village against us when they get here." She gulped. "The only chance we have is if we go and talk to the queen."

"What? Just walk right up ask them nicely to let us go? That's a terrible plan!" Starry stomped her hoof as her wings flared out. She pulled out her canteen and finished off its contents, leaning her head back as she tried to shake out that last drop.

"If I can talk to the queen . . . if I agree to stay with her willingly . . . she might let you and Day go."

"And what of my tribe?" Kijiba asked. "Hunters do not give up prey. I'm left with nothing!"

"I'm sorry! I don't know what else to do! If you hadn't exposed me, maybe we could have gotten through unnoticed, but you had to go and hit me with that damn powder—"

The same thought struck us all at the same time, and we turned toward Kijiba. "Do you have more of that powder?" Starry asked. "We can use it against them—incapacitate them so we can stand a chance."

"I used what I had," he answered. "More ingredients, I have; but supply is short."

"Then make what you can," said Chrys as she wiped her eyes again. "If we use it on the queen, if we can defeat her, then the hive will be lost without her."

"And how do we know we can trust you?"

Chrys looked like she was about to start crying again as she faced Starry. "I guess you don't. But it's the only chance we have. And if we don't go out to fight them soon, they'll come for us. They'll take you and they'll put you in trances and make you live out your worst nightmares over and over again until all that's left of you is an empty husk, and then when your soul is empty, they'll feast on your body. It's what happens to everyone who's ever gone missing from this village." She turned to Kijiba. "I'm so sorry. Please believe me. I was never any part of it. What they do . . . I'd sooner starve than become a monster like them."

The whole time, I sat silently in the corner. I could hardly imagine anything more monstrous than what Chrys described. As Kijiba set to work making more of the powder he had used on Chrys, Starry continued interrogating her for anything that might be useful in planning our attack, and I sat quietly, trying my best to hold my stomach down. It twisted into knots inside me and filled me with dread as I looked down at the pistol tucked into my front pocket. I was going to have to use it. I'd have to kill again, almost for sure. Goddesses, I didn't want to. It was one thing to kill somepony in the heat of the moment, but I was going to be part of a plan to murder someone. Even if she was a monster, I felt sick at the thought. But what choice did I have?

I just had to put on a strong face and be the pony everypony expected me to be.

Chapter 7: Heart of Darkness

The action was very far from being aggressive—it was not even defensive, in the usual sense: it was undertaken under the stress of desperation, and in its essence was purely protective.

"Day, are you alright?" Starry asked quietly as she sat down next to me.

"Y—yeah. I'm fine."

"You sure? You look like you're about to be sick." She reached toward me, but I flinched away.

"It's nothing. I'm fine."

Starry sighed as she took out her aspirin bottle and shook out a tablet into her hoof. She paused, looking down at it; she was trembling. She shook out a second tablet and swallowed them both with a long sip from her flask.

"It's alright to be scared, Day," Starry said after a moment. She wasn't shaking anymore. "I know this isn't easy for you, but we're in enemy territory right now. And we're only going deeper from here—right into the heart of it. From what I got out of Chrys, we can expect them to try to mess with our heads. We won't be able to trust what we see or maybe even what we think or feel. So I need to know I can count on you to follow my instructions."

My eyes stayed fixed on the laser pistol she'd given me. I knew what she was getting at: she wanted me to be a killer.

"I won't lie to you," she said. "If I had a whole squadron of seasoned soldiers, I still wouldn't want to go up against these . . . creatures. But we're here, and we don't have any other options, so when things get hairy, I need you to be brave for me, okay?"

What a sweet nothing. Hadn't I "been brave" enough already? But I didn't have a choice, did I? I had a mask to wear: the mask of a soldier. I had to fight against others—others who would have just gone on living as they always had if not for me. This forest wasn't my home—I'd felt it almost since the moment we'd entered the forest: I didn't belong there; it wasn't my place. But there I was, drafted into a war against monsters in their very home among the shadows, and who grew stronger by feeding off those who didn't get along—those like me.

I'd always been a good pony. I got along. I never wanted to hurt anyone, just keep my head down and live my life quietly as I always had. I had to be exiled for murder to become a killer.

Starry was right: I felt sick. But as I looked over at Chrys, I remembered that my exile had shown me what I was capable of—that I could wear any mask I needed to, if it meant protecting someone I cared about.

I looked down at my gun, then back up at Starry. "I'll do what I have to do."

With my assurance that she could count on me, Starry went to the door and watched outside through the small window cut into the door. Kijiba was still busy mixing and grinding various dried plants. And Chrys was huddled against the back wall all by herself. Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks were wet from crying. She glanced up and saw me looking at her.

My first instinct was to turn away, pretend I hadn't seen her like that so she could pretend the same. But when I looked away from her, I felt something . . . a knot in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't just leave her like that.

"It's alright," I said softly as I moved over to sit near her. "Nopony's going to hurt you."

"Thank you." Chrys sniffled as she wiped a fetlock across her cheeks. "That's sweet of you, but that's not really what worries me."

"Well . . . what, then?"

"You wouldn't understand." She looked up at me, then glanced over at Starry briefly. "Well, maybe . . ." She sighed. "Everything I knew as a child . . . everyone I loved  . . . it all just vanished in the blink of an eye. I lost my whole world and—" She choked. "I never got to say goodbye. It was just so sudden. Everything was fine when I went to sleep, but when I woke up, it was the worst day of my life. Maybe I should have known it was possible—even expected it just a little, but I just wanted to believe everything would work out okay."

Chrys was quiet for a moment before continuing. "Ever since then, I've just been doing whatever I could to replace what I lost." She smiled a little. "I was lucky to find Mum. She took care of me as her own. If it hadn't been for her, if I'd stayed with the queen here . . . maybe I could have survived, but I needed a mother to love me so I could thrive."

Her eyes welled up with tears. "I . . . I remember my mother singing to me, but no matter how hard I try, I can't remember the song." She closed her eyes tightly, blinking the tears out. "I've never felt this alone before. It's like . . . like . . ."

"Like falling?" I offered. She tilted her head as she looked at me. "It's like you're falling, and everypony around you has no idea because the wind is choking you so you can't scream. And you're afraid to grab onto anyone for help because you'll just drag them down with you. And if you did, they'd just fight you and kick you away to save themselves. You're falling, but the ground never gets any closer. Just . . . falling forever . . . with nobody to hold you . . ."

"Hun . . ." Chrys stared at me, her mouth open, and her eyes wide. She looked about to start crying again when Starry called our attention.

"We've got movement outside."

Kijiba moved to the door and looked outside. Almost immediately, he turned pale. Quickly, he returned to his workbench and poured what little powder he had made into two small cloth satchels. "My tribe is coming," he said gravely as he turned to face us. "Our time to prepare is done. We cannot stay here." He gave one satchel to Starry and kept the other for himself.

Starry motioned for us to leave, and Chrys and I got up. Chrys stopped me on the way to the door, though. She looked into my eyes. "Day, I . . . whatever happens out there, please try to remember: Starry and I are your friends. We'll never do anything to hurt you."

It seemed like a strange time to say something like that. But I gave a nod anyway, and, after holding my gaze for a moment, Chrys went ahead of me, and I followed her out of the hut.

Outside, I saw the rest of Kijiba's tribe—all of them. Every single zebra in the whole village: young, old, even those who looked deathly ill.

Their tired, emaciated forms shuffled toward us, ponderous and unceasing. And with beady, vacant eyes tinted pale green, they glared at us, through us. They trampled their own gardens without a single faltered step, all in a mindless march against us who had intruded on their collective. No, not mindless; for they were possessed of a single mind, intent on violently stamping out the unwelcome disruption of the status quo.

Chrys gasped. "They're here already. They have everyone entranced."

"Let's get moving before we end up like them," Starry said.

I was grateful to not have to fight them. It had been one thing when I killed to protect myself from somepony who was going to kill me, but those villagers weren't themselves—they didn't really want to hurt us. It was just whatever mind control the changelings had forced on them.

Chrys lead the way into the forest, and the rest of us followed quickly. Into the dark shadows, we galloped as fast as the dense trees would allow, which wasn't very fast, but we were able to lose sight of the villagers soon enough.

***

Small glints in the canopy told me that it was still light out, but the trees swallowed up nearly all of the day's light. It may as well have been an eternal night in the forest. And when I turned on my Pipbuck light to try and see the trees ahead of us more clearly, Starry told me to turn it off; the light would make us easier to track, she explained. So I did as she said. We had to rely on letting our eyes adjust to the dark woods.

"Do you even know where you're going?" I heard Starry whisper.

"I can hear them," Chrys answered quietly. "They're all around us. Just stay quiet."

"We're walking into a trap."

"They had us trapped as soon as they knew I was here. All we can do is try to catch them off guard and—"

We all stopped abruptly, and I began looking all around for signs of anything moving among the shadows. But all I saw were the shadows themselves.

I felt a chill run down my spine. Something had changed about the forest, but I couldn't tell what it was. The trees were the same stoic, looming pillars. The canopy was the same dark blanket, keeping the forest shrouded away from the gray sky above. The air was as still as ever.

My wings bristled as I felt a sudden realization stand up and scream at me from the back of my mind. I tried to ignore it, deny it at first. It wasn't possible! It couldn't be. If it were true—what that would imply . . .

I looked down at my hooves as I took a shaky step forward, and I watched as my hoof came down on a small, dry twig. I felt it snap under me, but that was all—I only felt it. I didn't hear it. The air was perfectly calm; not even the slightest sound carried through it.

"S—Starry . . ." I whispered. No answer. "Starry?" I turned my head to look at her, but she wasn't there. Frantically, I wheeled around. Kijiba and Chrys were gone as well. I'd gotten separated, but when? How?

"Starry!" I called out. "Starry! Chrys! Kijiba!" My chest heaved with each shout, but even with all the air in my lungs, my voice felt small and pitifully insignificant among the stony trees.

The air itself was choking me so I couldn't scream. I turned around and around in a dizzying panic, desperately searching for any sign of life in the dark woods. My screams for help were swallowed up in silence before they could even reach my own ears, and I nearly passed out from lack of breath.

Then I heard something, like a crinkle of leaves underfoot, and I thought I saw a shadow moving through the trees out of the corner of my eye. It could have been anything, but in that moment I couldn't imagine it being anything worse than the choking silence and the dark emptiness of being all alone. So I ran toward it.

Leaves and twigs crushed silently under my hooves as I bounded through the forest, weaving around trees that grew closer together the further I went. The trees became a dark, towering wall of bark and silent contempt, but still I could see something moving just beyond them. I pressed on, taking any path I could find through the trees until I found a gap in the wall that I could squeeze through.

I emerged on the other side in a small area where the trees were much less dense, and I found myself with whom I'd been chasing.

"Starry!" I gasped. "Thank the Goddesses! I was all alone and—"

"Shut up, you sniveling little worm!"

I blinked, my ears drooping. "S—Starry? Wha—"

"I said be quiet!" Her hoof hit my cheek like a bolt of lightning, and I fell to the ground. Dark spots floated across my blurred vision, and for a moment my whole world was reduced to a ringing in my ear and the taste of copper in my mouth. As focus returned to my eyes I staggered to pick myself up, and my eyes turned up to see Starry looming over me, and I nearly froze at the sight of her hoof drawing back for another strike. Reflex took over, and I collapsed back onto the ground, throwing my forelegs over my face for protection.

"Starry, please! I'm sorry!" I whimpered.

"You're a pathetic, useless excuse for a pony. What good are you?"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Whatever I did wrong, I'm sorry!" I cringed and tightened my forelegs over my face while the rest of my body curled up and tensed, waiting for her to hit me again.

"'I'm sorry!'" she mocked. "All you do is whine. You can't do anything for yourself. I should just leave you to die on your own."

"No! Please! I don't want to be alone!" I uncovered my face to reach out and grasp at her forelegs, pleading. She took the opportunity to hit me again, this time catching me in the ear. I rolled over with a loud yelp, clutching at the side of my head. It felt like an ice cold knife had been jammed in my ear.

"You're worthless!" She hooked her hoof under the collar of my uniform and lifted me up to face her. "I don't have time to care for a little foal like you." As she sneered, her eyes flashed a bright green and I felt my hind legs grow weak.

I wanted to kick and scream and run away, but those eyes held me still. Her eyes glowed brightly, and all I could hear were those words: "pathetic," "useless," "worthless" echoing in my head. I couldn't even feel the stabbing pain my ear anymore. Trapped in the back of my own mind, I screamed at myself to get away, but those words drowned me out. They pressed in around my own voice in the same way that the trees in the forest had closed in around me.

Dark shadows rolled in all around me, seeping out from between the trees like a black fog. All I could see were those glowing green eyes. Even as I felt my body crumple under me as I was dropped onto the ground, the image of those eyes stayed fixed in my mind. Get up! Run away! Escape! I screamed at myself, but my body was completely numb, paralyzed. I had the sensation of moving, as if being carried, and slowly, those eyes that had burned themselves into my mind began to dim until I was left completely alone in the dark.

***

Slowly, I opened my eyes; I was alone. I looked down and saw that under my hoof was the steel plating of a stable corridor. I looked up: The trees were gone, replaced by matte gray stable walls. I was in a corridor, and knew exactly where it led.

I had to run, had to get out. I turned around and started to run, but skidded to a halt as I almost immediately ran into a door, a door that couldn't have been there, and yet there it was. I wasn't in the corridor anymore; I was in one of the living quarters. And I knew the door in front of me. Every door in the stable looked the same, but I knew this door. It was her door.

I turned around again to flee, but behind me I found myself inside her room. Everything was exactly as I had left it: her lifeless body on the bed, the sheets soaked in blood. Streaks of blood splattered all across the wall and even dripped from the ceiling.

Again, I turned in a desperate attempt to escape, but this time I was stopped by Starry as she stepped through the open doorway.

"So this is what you're hiding," she said in a casual, almost disinterested tone.

Words caught in my throat as I backed away from her. Her eyes shined with a baleful green light, and she slowly advanced toward me, backing me up against the bed.

"What's the matter? Afraid to defend yourself?" She snarled and raised a hoof back to strike me. I couldn't even flinch away, her glowing green eyes held me paralyzed.

"Stop! You're hurting him!" a voice called out. It sounded far away, muffled, as though I were listening to it through a tank of water.

Those bright green eyes looked away from me briefly, then back again. The room around me faded into darkness and so did the glow of those eyes. Once again, I was alone in the dark.

"Day!" that voice called again. It was closer. "Day! Open your eyes, Day!" I felt a hoof on my cheek.

***

I was dizzy. My ear was still ringing from when I'd been hit. A stabbing pain shot through my neck as I tried to move, and my eyes snapped open as I let out a pained gasp.

"Chr—Chrys?" I groaned, seeing her there in front of me. It had been her voice that I'd heard.

"Shh. Don't try to move. Just hang on. I'll get you out of this, I promise," she whispered through a forced smile to reassure me, but as I moved my eyes to look around, my heart sank like a lead weight inside my chest.

All around us were changelings. Their eyes gleamed in the shadows between the trees and in their boughs. The air hummed with their shrill chittering and hisses. And I was helpless before them; my legs were wrapped up in a sticky green slime, trapping me as much as when I'd been paralyzed by their stares.

I looked around and saw Kijiba there with me. His eyes were tinted green and he was just staring off into space. Two changelings stalked around him in slow circles, hissing and baring their fangs at him between fits of what I could only assume was laughter—a high-pitched warble that made my skin crawl. Kijiba seemed oblivious to their threats and cackles. He only swayed unsteadily on his hooves with that vacant stare on his face. They hadn't even bothered to restrain him as they had with me.

"Please! They're my friends!" I heard Chrys plead. She was kneeling, begging to a dark form in the shadows.

Two bright green eyes hovered over Chrys in the darkness. "What do you need friends for, little one? You have us now. You know we missed you dearly ever since you left us. But that's alright. We won't punish you for it. You were just confused. Isn't that right?"

Chrys glanced back at me over her shoulder, then back into the shadows. "Y—yes . . . I . . . I'm sorry. I promise, I won't run away again. Just, please, let my friends go. They won't cause any trouble. I swear."

"You know we can't do that, sweetheart. We have to think of the swarm first, you know. The swarm is what keeps you safe, keeps you fed. You know that, don't you?"

"Please! I beg y—ahh!" Chrys tumbled over with a loud cry of pain.

"Now look at what you made me do." The figure stepped closer, out of the shadows to where I could make out her shape in the darkness. Twice as tall as any pony I'd ever seen, her dark hide, like the other changelings, made her almost invisible in the shadows. Her mane and tail shimmered ever so faintly in the sparse light that filtered down on her. She must have been the changeling queen. "Why do you have to be so selfish? Haven't we done enough for you? We found you, woke you up from your slumber, gave you a home, a family, and let you join in our feast. Is this how you repay our kindness?"

Chrys climbed to her feet and stood tall as she faced the queen. "I'll never stay with you!" she screamed defiantly. The buzzing and chittering around us quieted, and all the glowing eyes in the dark were on Chrys. She glanced in my direction, and her expression hardened. "Only if you let my friends go. Only when they're safe will I let you keep me."

The queen laughed. It wasn't the chilling warble I'd heard from the others, but more like a warm belly laugh. "Oh, little lost daughter, we don't need your permission to keep you." The queen's horn, long and wickedly jagged, glowed with a bright green aura. "Now, let's get you out of that unnatural pony disguise."

A ring of green flames rose up around Chrys, and I heard her scream as it closed in around her. It flashed brightly and then it was gone. When my eyes readjusted to the darkness, I saw Chrys on her knees again, shivering in her naked black hide like the other changelings.

"Look at you," the queen sneered. "How can you stand that oppressive costume for so long? We've let you have your fun little rebellion, and now it's time to come back to us and be a good girl."

Chrys struggled to stand, but the queen pushed her down again.

"Tsk. So weak, child. You must be starving. Here: we'll let you be the first to feast on this . . . creature." The queen turned toward Kijiba. Her eyes glowed, and his shined in response. Slowly, he walked over to her.

"This thing has been a nuisance for us for quite some time now. Those damned books it found; it thinks it can fight us. We saw what it did to you, poor child—that powder that stole your magic, and that infernal noise-maker. We're ever so grateful that you convinced it to destroy that thing for us."

"It wasn't for you!"

"Silence, child. Remember what this creature did to you. It humiliated you, had you at its mercy. It would have held you captive and done unspeakable things to our precious little daughter."

"He was only trying to protect—"

"He?" The queen laughed again. This time her pitch ascended into a shrill warble that made my bones itch. The entire forest echoed her laugh in waves. "Sweet little child. This creature doesn't deserve such recognition." Her eyes glowed brightly as she stared down into Kijiba's eyes. "See how simple it is to control? Such a beast isn't fit for more than being food for the swarm.

"What a pitiful little creature, isn't it, child?" The queen turned her gaze back to Chrys. "We've been waiting for the day we could get rid of this. We're glad you could be here for it. Don't you see, child? This game you've played of pretending to be a pony; it's over. It's time to come home, dear."

"Chrys!" I managed to call out to her, though it felt as if my chest were about to implode from the effort it took. I could barely breathe.

"It looks as though your little pet found his voice," the queen said. "We thought you might like a chance to get back at this creature that exposed you, but we've seen the way you look at your pet. Go on, child, indulge yourself: feed on him if it makes you happy. He's hiding a lot. See what you can tease out of him." The queen helped Chrys back to her feet and pushed her toward me.

Chrys looked at me, holding my eyes in her gaze. Her face had gone completely blank, like she'd given up, given in.

"Chrys, please!" I begged as I struggled against the sticky green slime that held me.

She blinked slowly as her horn began to glow. "Trust me," she whispered. Chartreuse magic flashed around her, and she opened her eyes, staring into mine as she stood before me as Starry. She reached a hoof toward me, and I flinched back, but the sticky green muck around my legs and torso gave me nowhere to run. I opened my mouth to say something or maybe to scream, but my voice was lost as she held me captive in her glowing eyes and—

She kissed me.

Her forelegs wrapped around my shoulders, and she pulled herself close against me. I felt my whole body shiver, and then suddenly everything felt quiet, still. The forest and changelings around me faded away. I was weightless, floating in warm, white light. I felt somepony holding me, but it wasn't Starry anymore. I saw—

I saw my mother.

"Shh. It's okay. Mommy's here. I love you, my Lucky Day."

Choking back a sob, I gasped and clung to her tightly, burying my face in her neck. "I'm sorry, mommy," was all I could say.

And then she was gone. I was cold and alone again, and Chrys was there in front of me, in her pony form again. She was crying. Blinking, I felt tears roll down my own cheeks as I stared at her breathlessly.

"I'm so sorry," she said quietly, her voice trembling.

"What are you doing?" I heard the queen demand.

Chrys turned away from me, and her horn shined brightly with her chartreuse aura. "You do not hurt my friends!" she yelled. Her magic grew brighter and brighter, and then a blinding flash burst forth from her horn in all directions. I felt a warm tingle as it washed over me, and then my legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the ground as the green muck that had been holding me disintegrated. I was too weak to stand on my own. All I could do was stare out into the darkness, trembling in shock from what had happened.

There was yelling, buzzing, stomping of hooves, all swarming around me. I couldn't move. I wasn't even sure I was breathing. Even when I started feeling the shockwaves of explosions echoing through the ground, all I could see or hear was the lingering vision of my mother saying she loved me.

"Day!" somepony called out to me. "Day!" the voice called again.

I felt something around my shoulders, and then the whole forest began moving around me. The ground dragged under my hooves. Somepony sat me down. Her face was in front of me, but I could only look through it. My whole body was completely numb. More than just that; I felt completely disconnected from all my senses.

"Day!" the face was calling out to me.

Her forelegs wrapped around me tightly, and my head rested on her shoulder. Somehow, I became vaguely aware that it was Starry holding me. When did she get there? I wondered somewhere in the back of my mind.

"St—Starry?" my voice mumbled.

Slowly, I felt my body coming back to me. Then, in a rush, I gasped in sharply. My heart was pounding inside my chest, and I quickly scrambled away from Starry. "Don't touch me!" I cried.

"Day, Day, it's okay!" Starry said as she backed up from me. "You're okay. It's safe now. Look. See? They're gone."

I looked around. The eyes that had watched us from the shadows were gone. Their shrills and chitters were gone too. The air reeked of ozone and burnt flesh. Starry was sitting in front of me. Her mane was a mess; her braid had come completely undone and stray hairs clung to her sweat-soaked face and neck. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, but she was smiling at me.

"What . . ."

"What happened? We got separated. It was hard, but I managed to stay a step ahead of their mind games. Heh. Lucky for you." She spoke at a frantic pace. I could barely keep up with what she was saying. "When I saw Chrys's bright big magic blast, I came in from above and laid some heavy ordinance into the enemy formation and with the enemy commander stunned and their ranks scattered, it took only a single strafing run to terminate the commander which in addition to demoralizing the enemy appears to have forced them into retreat."

Starry paused to take out her flask and aspirin bottle; she quickly downed a couple tablets and stood up, fanning her wings at her sides. "You're safe now, and don't worry. I told you I wouldn't let anything happen to you. I told you, didn't I? I promised, and I wouldn't lie to you, Day."

"Starry—"

"What is it, Day? Are you hurt? What's wrong? You're safe now. Don't worry."

"Starry, I just . . . I need a minute," I said quietly.

"Oh. Of course. I'll just be over here, securing the area. Okay? Okay. Just yell if you need me. Okay? Oh, and here: they took your pistol away, but I got it back for you." She held it out to me.

"Okay," I answered, nodding to her as I reluctantly took the pistol and tucked it into my pocket again, not that it had done me any good so far.

My legs were still shaky, but I managed to stand up on my own. As I walked, I glanced over to see Kijiba slipping away into the forest; back toward his village, I assumed.

I turned away from everypony to look out into the dark forest, away from what I was sure was a bloody and gruesome battlefield. I didn't need to see any of it. I'd seen too much already.

Part of me fought to hold on to the memory of that strange vision I had when Star—when Chrys kissed me. Another part wanted to just let it fade and forget about the whole thing. All I could do was sit there, alone, away from the others, biting my lip as I struggled to keep from breaking down and crying like a little foal.

The sound of hoofsteps let me know somepony was approaching. Sucking in a deep breath and wiping the stray tears out of my eyes, I did my best to hide the turmoil I was going through. I didn't want to drag anypony down with me.

"Are you alright?" Chrys asked as she sat down next to me. I kept my head down and shuffled over a little bit to make room for her.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" She reached a hoof toward me. "You don't seem—"

"Don't touch me!" I screamed and recoiled as she put her hoof on my shoulder. Even I was shocked by my reaction, but at least Chrys backed off. "What . . . what did you do to me?" I asked, breathing raggedly. My chest felt heavy.

Chrys was silent for a moment before answering. "I fed off of you," she said. "I'm sorry. It was the only way I could challenge her. It's . . . not supposed to hurt . . ."

"I saw . . ." The words caught in my throat.

"You saw what you wanted to see. Or . . . what you needed to see."

My chest burned as I fought to keep from hyperventilating. "D—did you . . . s-see . . . ?" I asked, turning my head to look over at her, though I couldn't bring my eyes up to meet hers.

She sighed quietly and shook her head. "No. I can only taste emotions. I don't read minds. Whatever you saw, it was for you alone." She paused. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Clenching my eyes shut, I shook my head vigorously. It was a lie, and I knew it. But what else could I do? There was nothing to talk about. My life in the stable was over. All I wanted to do was just accept it and move on with my new life. "Just . . . just leave me alone."

"Day . . ."

"I said leave me alone!"

Quietly, she left. And I was alone.

I keep trying to just put it all behind me. But it keeps getting dug up.

What Chrys had said earlier, about needing a mother to love her . . . she has no idea just how lucky she really was. And then to go and—and . . . plant that dream in my head. I—

I feel like I'm falling, with no end in sight. I wonder if I'll ever hit bottom. I almost wish for it, just so I can stop falling already.

Nopony understands. I could explain it . . . but they wouldn't be able to fix anything. At best, they'd just fill my ears with sweet nothings because that's all you can do when you can't actually help someone—tell him that everything will be alright; lie to him and tell him it's not his fault.

Starry's over there, taking more aspirin. It doesn't look like it's helping much, but at least the changelings never got her like they got me. If she survived even half the things they put me through, she still wouldn't understand. And not Chrys either, not after what she did to me. Even Kijiba; whatever they put him through, he still hasn't had to do what I've—

"Starry? Starry! Day, I need help!"

"Wha— Starry! What's happening?"

"She's seizing! Dammit! I wasn't watching. How many did she take?"

"How many what? Aspirin?"

"Aspirin? Day, those are Mint-als!"

Chapter 8: Falling Star

Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too

So I stayed in the darkness with you

Mint-Als were a kind of stimulant drug, Chrys explained to me after she cast a spell on Starry that stopped her convulsions—a paralyzing spell, she had said. It was the only thing she could think to do, if nothing else than to just keep Starry from hurting herself any further.

"I need to go get help," Chrys said. "You stay here with Starry while I go find Kijiba."

I knelt down next to Starry, looking over her. She was on her side, completely limp, though her eyes stayed open and stared straight ahead, fixed as though they were watching some faraway horror. Spittle frothed at the corner of her lips.

"What do I do?" I asked, glancing up at Chrys.

"Just . . . keep her company. Make sure she doesn't stop breathing," Chrys answered hesitantly before she turned and galloped off into the woods.

I looked down at Starry again, and for a while all I could do was sit there and watch her chest rise and fall with each breath. I wanted to reach out to her, hold her, but I was afraid. I feared that if I touched her, it would only hurt more if—if she . . . didn't make it.

I fought back tears. I couldn't start crying. I had to be strong. I had to do something, but there was nothing to be done.

One of Starry's saddlebags had come open while she had been seizing. Its contents had spilled out all around her. So, for lack of anything else I could do to help her, I started gathering up her things and putting them back into her bag. Among them, I found her aspirin bottle.

The bottle had been a lie the entire time. I gritted my teeth as I stared at the faded, benign label on the bottle and thought about the poison that had been inside it all along. It made my wings bristle and my mane stand on end to think about how stupid I had been.

And in that moment, I felt a sudden, primal urge within me: There was one thing I could do. I didn't have to think about it, or worry if it was the right thing to do—doing it was the only thing I could do. And even if it were wrong to do it, I wouldn't care. I threw the bottle into the darkness, where I heard it crash through the branches and land somewhere out there where I couldn't see it anymore, where it would stay lost.

As soon as it was gone, I felt weak again, like I had after Chrys had fed off me. My heart was racing, pounding inside my chest, but it was a distant sensation, as though it weren't my heart or my chest. I sat down and watched over Starry in numb silence. The near-total darkness that had pervaded the forest was somehow seeming to dissipate. But the dim light that filtered in to replace it was cold and brought no comfort as I stayed there with Starry, watching her ragged, irregular breathing.

"Please don't leave me," I whimpered quietly.

***

"Day?" I heard Chrys calling out to me through the trees.

"Over here!" I yelled back.

Chrys came crashing through the woods, gasping for breath. Kijiba followed shortly after. He carried a large cloth bag over his shoulder.

I moved out of the way to give Kijiba room to work as he knelt down beside Starry and began examining her.

"Is she okay?" Chrys asked as she sat down next to me, still panting. She had a few leaves and twigs stuck in her mane, and her forelegs had a number of fresh cuts on them.

"I don't know. She's still breathing at least," I answered. "Are you alright?"

Chrys looked down at herself. She seemed confused at first, as if she hadn't known she was injured. "I tripped while I was running. It's alright, I'm fine."

Remembering that the medkit I carried had been restocked by Grift, I opened it up to find a supply of fresh bandages and even a few healing potions. I held out a roll of bandages to Chrys to use on her cuts, but she grabbed one of the healing potions in her magic instead and carried it over to Kijiba.

"Will this help?" Chrys asked.

Kijiba had been in the middle of sorting through the contents of his medicine bag, but he paused to take the vial from Chrys. He pulled out the stopper and gave it a sniff. "It will not, I fear," he answered grimly with a shake of his head. He replaced the stopper, gave the vial back to Chrys, and returned to his bag. "Poison runs deep in her veins. Her body must purge."

He produced a small vial containing a viscous, dark fluid from his bag. He opened Starry's mouth and carefully poured a single drop onto her tongue. It took only a moment for her to start heaving. She threw up, but there wasn't much; it seemed that scotch and Mint-Als had been the only things in her stomach. A half-dozen small white tablets, half-dissolved, lay on the ground in front of her once she finished.

"Is she going to be alright?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"A rough road ahead," Kijiba answered as he pulled a bundle of leaves from his bag. "She'll get worse before better." He plucked one of the leaves from its stem and put it under Starry's tongue. "But your friend is strong."

After a few moments, Starry's eyes relaxed, losing that faraway stare and slowly closing. Her breathing steadied, and I let out a relieved sigh.

Kijiba stood up and approached me. He gave me the bundle of leaves and told me, "Put one leaf under her tongue every few hours for the next day. Then whenever she starts shaking."

I nodded and tucked the leaves into my saddlebag.

Kijiba helped us carry Starry back to his hut where he then helped us fashion a stretcher so Chrys and I could carry her all the way back to the diner. Chrys asked if he would be safe and offered to let him come with us.

Kijiba said his place was there, though. He thanked us for killing the changeling queen and driving out the others. He feared that they might come back, and knew that his village would need his help defending against their return; with their influence gone, the villagers would listen to him now.

After saying our final goodbyes and thank yous with Kijiba, Chrys and I set out with Starry on the stretcher between us.

We walked back to the diner in silence. I was still reeling from the dream she had put me through, and my envy of Kijiba mixed with that to give me an uncomfortable longing for home—for the home I used to know, when I was just a little colt, and when everything was simple . . . when I could cry when I was sad.

I envied Kijiba. He had a place where he belonged. His picture was complete, with all the pieces set in their places, while mine was on the verge of falling apart all over again.

***

We arrived back at Mum's Diner well after sunset. The night was dark, without even a trace of moonlight penetrating the clouds above. But the diner's generator was still working, so we had light and warmth inside.

We carried Starry upstairs and, after searching through her pockets to find the keys to all the locks she had installed on the door, got her inside and set her down on the bed.

Chrys and I looked at each other. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and Chrys didn't look much better. Of course, Starry was the worst-off of all of us and we couldn't rest just yet.

I held Starry up while Chrys used her magic to unfasten Starry's battle saddle and set it aside with her bags. We then had to get Starry out of her uniform, which was permeated with sweat and grime, before we could finally lay her back down and let her rest properly. In the course of searching her pockets and getting her gear and clothes off, we found half a dozen flasks on her. All but two of them were empty.

Chrys went around the room, looking through the desk drawers, under the chair cushions, and under the bed. She collected another two flasks and four bottles of scotch, as well as two other "aspirin" bottles.

"Day?"

Chrys put her hoof on my shoulder, making me flinch. "Sorry. I didn't mean to—" She sighed. "Why don't you take off your uniform too? I'll wash it for you along with Starry's."

Looking down at myself, I realized just how dirty my uniform had gotten. There were even still bloodstains in it—not my blood. It had only been a few days, but the wasteland had already covered the once bright blue and yellow of my stable uniform with dull, dark, reddish-brown stains. Suddenly, all the blood and death I had seen in that short time played back in my head.

"Day?" Chrys asked again.

"I, um, sure," I answered, shaking my head to clear those gruesome images away. I pulled down the zipper and started taking my uniform off, but it caught on my injured wing and pulled at the still-sore joint. I ground my teeth and started wrestling with it, but that only seemed to get me even more caught up in it.

"Hold still. Let me help," Chrys said softly. "I won't touch you, I promise," she added hastily as I glared at her. It took me a moment, but I sighed and gave her my consent. Chrys circled around behind me, and I felt the warmth of her magic against my back as she took hold of my uniform. "Is it alright if I take the bandages off your wing?" she asked. I nodded slowly, and I felt her warmth around my wing, but only briefly before the bandages came loose and floated away.

Slowly and carefully, Chrys worked my uniform off. Then she gasped. "Day, you're covered in bruises. What happened to you?"

"It's nothing," I answered quickly while stepping away from Chrys and turning so she couldn't see my back. "I—I fall down a lot is all."

Chrys stared at me, still holding my stable uniform in her magic. "Day, those bruises are shaped like hooves. Did somepony beat you? Who would—" Her eyes widened and she gasped; she had the look of somepony who had just uncovered a deeply-buried secret. "Day . . . oh, Day . . . I'm so sorry. If I had known, I never would have—"

I cringed and backed away from her. "No."

"Day, it's alright. You're safe here."

"No." I backed up further, right up against the wall.

"It's alright. I understand now. You were—"

"Don't say it!" I snapped at her.

"It's alright. It's not your fault," she said timidly while keeping her distance.

"No!" I screamed at her. "You don't get to tell me what is or isn't my fault! You don't get to plant dreams in my head and then go and tell me it's alright! Don't tell me it's alright! It's what everyone always says, but they only ever say it when it's not alright. I don't want to hear your sweet nothings. It's not alright, and you can't make it that way just by saying it is!"

"Day, I'm only trying to help—"

"Get out!"

"Day—"

"I said get out!" I kicked the wall behind me and felt the wood crack under my hoof.

Chrys hesitated only briefly before she gave a slow nod and made her way out the door, collecting Starry's uniform and her flasks, bottles, and pills along the way. As soon as she was across the threshold, I ran over, slammed the door, and turned all the locks. And then I collapsed against the door. My face and ears burned, and I could hear the pounding of my own heartbeat.

I was on the verge of tears when a rapid beeping found its way through the noise in my ears: my Pipbuck alarm. I had set it to go off every three hours to remind me to give Starry another one of those leaves. I stood up, let myself forget about everything else, and after I had put a new leaf under her tongue, I moved the armchair closer to the bed. I climbed into the chair and got as comfortable as I could in it, with my chin resting on the arm so I could watch over Starry.

I may have dozed off briefly once or twice, but it was hard to tell. Time was standing still inside that room. It was only Starry and I and her mosaic constellation tacked up all across the walls. I remember feeling so excited about helping her search for Rainbow Dash—she was going to give me a place where I could belong, a puzzle to fit into. But the search had only lead to more heartache instead.

I wanted to give up. I couldn't bear to go through that kind of torture again. I wasn't cut out for what the wasteland would put me through. I didn't know where else I could go or what I could do, but whatever it was, I'd have to do it alone, I decided. As long as I was alone, nopony else could hurt me.

***

It was not very long after my Pipbuck alarm had gone off again and I'd given Starry another leaf when there was a knock at the door. I pretended not to hear it.

The knock came again. "Day?" It was Chrys. I felt my heart start racing, though I kept my breathing shallow and tried to just ignore her.

"Day, I'm—" She hesitated. "I'm leaving some food and water, some clean blankets, and your and Starry's uniforms out here. I'll be downstairs if you need anything." There was silence for a moment before I heard her hoofsteps moving away from the door and back down the stairs.

I didn't go to check what she left for us right away; I wasn't hungry or cold, Starry was still asleep, and I didn't really want to get up anyway. After a while, though, I did climb out of the chair and made my way over to the door. I opened it slowly, taking my time with each of the locks.

There were no locks on doors inside the stable. At least, not on any of the living quarters. Security had locks on the detention cells and in the armory, of course, and the stable door itself was really nothing but a giant lock on the whole stable, but that was it. I had never locked myself in before—I'd never been able to before, and there had been a certain feeling of comfort in locking the world out.

I turned the final deadbolt and opened the door. The hall was empty save for the food (a few MRE) water, blankets, and our uniforms. I brought them into the room quietly and then closed and relocked the door, though I only bothered with one of the deadbolts; it had felt good to lock them all when I had chased Chrys out, but now it just seemed excessive.

I left Starry's uniform on top of her bags, put the food and water on the desk beside the shattered remains of the radio, threw one blanket over the armchair, and pulled the other one over Starry. Chrys had gotten the stains out of my uniform, but the colors were still severely faded.

Wastelanders recognized stable uniforms; as long as I wore it, I'd always stand out as somepony who didn't belong out here. I considered not putting it back on, but I was uncomfortable without something to cover my bruises. And so what if I stood out as an outsider? I didn't belong; I may as well look like it.

My wing was still sore, and I hadn't bothered to re-bandage it—not that I would have been able to by myself anyway. But flexing my wing to fit it through my uniform wasn't so bad. As long as I didn't put too much strain on it, I'd be fine.

I climbed back into the armchair and settled down to watch over Starry. But I suddenly felt restless. My legs ached as though I'd just run a marathon, and no matter how I stretched out or curled up, I couldn't get comfortable. All I wanted was to quietly care for Starry, but the only thing on my mind was Chrys.

Part of me started imagining her coming back into the room. I imagined her pleading for forgiveness, saying anything and everything to try and convince me that she was sorry. And from there, the daydream split in two: In one version, I yelled at her—I told her that she had no right to do what she did, and that nothing she could ever say or do would make up for it. She'd given me an impossible dream, a dream that showed me everything—the only thing I ever wanted. But it was only that: a dream. And that dream hurt. She teased me with a vision of joy and happiness like I had never felt before, only to devour that joy herself and leave me with only the emptiness of knowing that I had glimpsed something I would never have.

And yet . . .

In my imagination's other version of events, I accepted her apology. I knew she didn't intend to hurt me. I couldn't blame her for it. And even though that didn't make it hurt less, I wanted to pretend as though it did. I wanted to hold her, cry with her. And as I let my imagination run with that vision, I thought of asking her if she could give me another dream, but one that wouldn't hurt. The warmth and comfort that I had felt, if only ever so briefly when she had fed off me, had been wonderful.

I closed my eyes and rolled over, finally getting comfortable. With my head leaning back, I let my imagination wander. I thought about what kind of dream I might have that would give me that—the good without the bad, the joy without the pain—what kind of dream I would ask her to make so vivid for me. Would that make up for what she did? Was I just deluding myself, just looking for something to make myself feel better? Was it even anything she would agree to? I didn't know. And as I let my daydreams play out in my head, I didn't care either.

***

The rest of the night went quietly. Chrys never came back, though I found myself wishing that she would. I didn't know if it was because I wanted an excuse to yell at her or if it was for something else; I tried not to think about it.

I didn't sleep at all. I kept thinking about how, only a few days earlier, everything in my life had been completely normal—the status quo, as it has always been. And then I had woken up one morning and it all had simply fallen apart; my entire life had shattered to pieces, and I had been left all alone with no place to fit in. And here it was, about to happen all over again. I didn't want to wake up to find that something had happened to Starry while I had been asleep.

So I stayed awake for the entire night, watching over her.

According to my PipBuck, it was early in the morning—just before six—when I heard Starry groan and I looked up to see her rolling over in bed. She covered her eyes with one foreleg while she hung the other one off the side of the bed and blindly fished around with it, looking for something.

"Starry?"

She winced. "Not so loud." Her voice was strained, and she panted as though out of breath. "Where're my bags? My head's killing me. Can you get my aspirin bottle for me?"

I hesitated. In my naivete, I had simply assumed that Starry would wake up and everything would be fine, that she'd be all better. But it couldn't be that easy.

"Day?" She asked again, "Aspirin? Please?"

"I—I'm sorry." My voice trembled. "You can't have any more."

Starry sat up at that, though she seemed to immediately regret the movement as she clutched her head and groaned. "What . . . what do you mean? I—I need it. My head's killing me."

"Starry, what's the last thing you remember?"

She slumped over and let out a pained moan as she peeked out from under her fetlock. She spotted her bags in the corner and slowly started crawling her way out of bed. Starry tumbled onto the floor and continued crawling toward her bags.

"Starry?"

"The forest," she murmured. "We got separated somehow." She paused for a moment. "How did we get back here?" She reached her bags and started digging around in them. "Day," she asked after a moment, "where is it? Where's my aspirin?"

"Chrys took it," I answered.

"What!" Starry clasped her hooves over her ears at the sound of her own voice.

"Starry, you . . . you overdosed. You nearly died."

She forced a laugh through gritted teeth. "Day, that's silly. You can't overdose on aspirin."

"Starry, I know it wasn't aspirin. Chrys told me."

"What does that bitch know?" She started crawling toward me. "Day. Do me a favor and go get it back for me? I need it." She reached a hoof out to me. She was shaking terribly. "I need it."

I bit my lip. "You need to rest, Starry. Kijiba gave me some leaves to help with the shaking. Just let me help you back into bed and I'll give you one and—"

"I don't—" She cringed and lowered her voice. "I don't need any damn leaves. If you want to help me, then get me my pills."

"No, Starry. You're sick. Please, just get some rest—"

"Fine! Don't help me!" She pushed herself up onto her hooves and started for the door.

"Starry, no!" I rushed to catch her as she stumbled toward the door.

"Let me go!" She screamed and started trying to push me away.

I held her tighter, and she bit my foreleg. We stumbled, crashed back against the side of the bed, and slumped to the floor together where I held her down. Starry kicked and bucked and screamed at me, but I wouldn't let go. Eventually, her kicks settled down to just shaking and her screams turned to sobs. She just kept repeating: "I need it. . . . I need it. . . . I need it . . ."

After she settled down, I helped Starry back into bed. She was mostly deadweight, but at least she wasn't fighting against me. Her whole body felt cold, but she was sticky with sweat. I got out another leaf for her and told her to hold it under her tongue. I wasn't sure if she understood me, or if she just didn't have the mind to do anything else with it, but she held it there while I pulled the covers over her. A few minutes passed and Starry's shaking subsided. Her eyes closed, and she fell asleep.

***

For the rest of the day, I continued to keep watch over her. She'd wake up every couple of hours or so. I tried giving her some food, but she couldn't keep down anything other than water, which I gave her plenty of. I had to hold her head up for her while she drank.

Starry was rarely lucid while she was awake. When she did have the presence of mind to talk to me, she'd try to convince me to get her pills for her; she was too weak to fight back when I told her no. Most of the time, though, she'd just mumble incoherently until her tremors would come back, so I'd give her another leaf, and she'd fall back into sleep. Thankfully, her tremors weren't as bad and were coming less frequently as the day carried on.

I lost track of time like that. I'd check the numbers on my PipBuck clock every so often, but they became meaningless; the action of looking at them was reduced to an idle habit. I didn't even care what time it was. There was no ticking away of seconds, minutes, hours; there was only the tense quiet between Starry's fits which marked the passage of time.

The numbers on my PipBuck told me it was late night, but it could have been a week, a month, or even a year later for all I could tell. I certainly felt like I hadn't slept in a week. And whatever sleep Starry was getting, it wasn't restful. She twisted and turned, and shivered in a cold sweat most of the time.

I had kept the lights off ever since she had woken up that morning. It seemed to help her sleep and to stay calm during those brief periods of consciousness.

Somehow, even without any windows in Starry's room, it had grown darker. And it was in that night's darkest hour that Starry began mumbling in her sleep. It wasn't anything I could make out, but as I watched and listened, she started thrashing about. The blankets tangled up around her legs, and Starry sat upright, her eyes wide open and mouth agape, frozen as though about to scream.

She sat there for a moment and looked around.

"Starry?" I got out of my chair and leaned over the foot of her bed.

Her eyes found mine in the darkness and she scrambled across the bed toward me. "Day," she whispered as she reached a hoof toward me. She hesitated when I flinched away, but I saw the look in her eyes: she was terrified. So I leaned in toward her and let her put her hoof on my cheek. "Day, I was so lost without you." She shivered and started crying softly. "In the forest. I saw—" She wrenched her eyes shut and shook her head vigorously, as if trying to rid herself of an image she couldn't bear the sight of.

Her eyes opened and fixed on mine again. "They tried to make me think you were dead. You're here, aren't you? Please tell me this isn't another dream. Are you hurt?"

"I'm . . . I'm here," I answered. "You saved me." I felt my chest tighten. "I almost lost you, though, Starry. You . . . you poisoned yourself."

She turned away from me and let out a trembling sigh. "I—I had to. The M—" She cringed at trying to say it. "Those . . . pills were the only thing that let me see through the horrible things they showed me. You just vanished and I was running around, trying to find you. And I stumbled over your body . . . you had been crushed. And—and then y—you got up . . . and you started telling me it was my fault, but that you were better off dead, and I shouldn't worry about you."

I'd been so stupid, blinded by my own selfish problems. Of course Starry had been tortured the way they had tortured me. Our dreams had been tailored so they could feed off our worst fears and memories. In my dream, Starry beat me. In hers, she had gotten me killed.

Slowly, I climbed up onto the bed and sat next to her. "Starry . . . how did this happen?" I asked. "How did you end up . . . like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"The pills, the drinking . . . why are you so afraid of . . . losing me?"

Starry glanced over at me briefly, then turned away. She was silent for a minute before she answered. "I did something terrible." She looked back at me, and I saw in her eyes, a silent, despairing plea. I moved closer to her, close enough that I could hear her shallow, trembling breaths.

She sniffled. "It was years ago, on my first command as captain. I took a team dirtside to tear down a building for scrap metal. It was already in bad shape—worse than that building where I met you. I was worried about it collapsing on us while we were inside, so I told my team to be quick: get in, set the charges, and get out."

Starry's breathing was ragged. She started shivering, but she just shook her head when I offered to get her another leaf. "I did a head count—made sure we all got out. I counted twice, just to make sure. Everypony was accounted for, so I set off the charges, and the building came down. Then we started excavating. And—"

Her face contorted, and her eyes closed tightly as she let out a loud, sobbing wail. "And then we found bodies." Starry wrapped herself in her wings, and rocked slowly as she cried. "They were so mangled by the collapse that we could barely tell they were ponies at first. They were all huddled together; some of them were so badly crushed that we couldn't tell where one body ended and the next began. We dug them out and buried them. Thirteen in all: six adults and seven—" She choked and gritted her teeth. "Seven children. Two of them couldn't have been more than a year old."

She rolled over and covered her face with her forelegs. "They were families. They were living in that building and hiding from us. I didn't do a sweep of the building. I didn't give them any warning. It was my fault they were dead. I killed them. Three whole families. With just the push of a button. If I'd only paid more attention . . . been more vigilant . . ."

"Is that why you started taking the Mint-Als?" I asked.

Starry shook her head vigorously under her forelegs. "No. That came later." Her back shuddered as she cried into her pillow. She didn't continue talking right away, and I didn't want to press her about it. So I just sat there on the corner of her bed, watching over her.

Eventually, she seemed to run out of tears, and her cries were reduced to muted sobs and short gasps for breath. She calmed down and sat up slowly. "When we got back to the clouds, I told my commanding officer about what happened. I told him it was my command, my responsibility; that I was the one who should be disciplined, not my team." She choked briefly, and took a deep breath. "He laughed at me. 'Just some rats that didn't have the sense to scurry away,' he said. I tried telling my other superiors, but they all said the same thing: I hadn't done anything wrong."

She turned to look at me, her eyes wide in horror. "Thirteen innocent civilians were dead, and I hadn't done anything wrong. The best I ever got out of anypony was from my old drill instructor, and all he told me was that if I was looking to be punished, I wouldn't find it—I was too useful."

Starry sighed and looked down at the floor. "That's when I started drinking. As soon as I was off duty, I'd drink to forget, and then I'd drink until I passed out. But then to deal with the hangovers, I started drinking while I was on duty too. My performance started slipping, and that's when I started taking Mint-Als to stay alert."

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back as she took in a deep breath. "They made me feel invincible. I knew where everything was—where everypony was, what they were doing, what they were saying. All of it. All the time. With those pills, I'd never screw up again."

She paused for a moment. I wanted her to go on, but I felt as though she needed me to ask something before she could continue. "So how did you end up here?"

Starry opened her eyes and lowered her gaze from the ceiling to the door with all her myriad locks installed on it. "I wasn't exactly discreet about what I was doing. I guess the higher-ups took notice, and rather than risk the public disgrace of a drug-addicted officer, they sent me on this snipe hunt. I don't suppose they ever expected me to find anything. Probably just wanted me to get myself killed down here so they could call me a hero without me around to screw it up." She let out a small, mirthless laugh. "It seems obvious now, but back then . . . I believed it: I was the hero, operating all by herself in a hostile environment, searching for Rainbow Dash's final resting place. And when I found her, it was going to be this magical thing where suddenly everything would be right with the world. All I had to do was find this one special mare and it would make all the bad things in my life just go away."

She sighed again and turned to face me. "But it doesn't work that way." She shook her head. "Nothing can erase the pain we've been through; nothing can make it right. All we can do is try to learn from it, try to help others learn from it too. And do our best to not repeat our mistakes."

Starry leaned over and hugged me.

I didn't know what else to say or even what to do. I wasn't completely comfortable in her embrace, but I could tell that she needed it, and I even found a certain comfort in her warmth myself. So I didn't pull away, and we just sat there. I let her hold me, rest her head on my shoulder, and we stayed like that until I felt her go limp against me; she'd fallen asleep.

Carefully, I laid her down on the bed and pulled the covers over her. For the first time since I'd known her, she actually looked peaceful while she was sleeping.

***

Not long after Starry went back to sleep, I left her room to go downstairs.

It was well past midnight at that point, but the lights were still on, and I heard movement. As I came out the door at the bottom of the stairs, I was struck by the smell of beer mixed with sweat. There were a couple of ponies I hadn't seen before passed out in booths along the wall, and Chrys, looking tired, but still smiling, was going around, collecting bottles and glasses in her aura while simultaneously wiping down the tabletops.

Chrys looked up to see me. Her eyes lit up briefly, but then her smile faded and she lowered her gaze back to the table she was cleaning. "Everything alr—I mean . . . how's Starry?" she asked.

"She woke up this morning. She was in bad shape for a while, but I think the worst is over," I answered as I took a seat at the counter. "What happened here?"

"Prospectors came back from their salvage run," Chrys said as she moved behind the counter and sorted her collected trash. "Was a big party to celebrate. Next time a trader comes through, we'll be able to stock up on enough food and water for a month, or at least as much as he's carrying." She dropped her rag into a bucket of dirty water and turned around to face me.

I looked down at my forehooves resting on the counter. "Is that a lot?"

"Yeah. This was a good haul. Sometimes this place is empty for weeks at a time when they don't bring back enough trading stock in a single run."

"That's good," I said.

"Yeah."

We were both silent for a while before Chrys asked, "How about you? Are you . . . how are you doing?"

I sighed and shook my head slowly. "I don't know. I just feel . . . tired.

"I can give you a place to sleep," Chrys offered.

"I don't want to sleep. I just . . . I need something to do."

There was a pause. "Are you trying to suggest something?"

I glanced up at her. "Huh?"

For the first time, Chrys was the one blushing instead of me. "N—nothing." She cleared her throat. "Is there something I can help you with?"

Again, I sighed and looked back down at my hooves. "I don't know."

Things were silent again until I heard the pop and fizz of a Sparkle-Cola bottle opening and Chrys set one down on the counter and slid it across to me. I looked up at her; she was smiling, but only a little. "On the house," she said softly.

I took the bottle and had a couple sips from it.

"Day, I'm . . . I know you don't want to hear me say I'm sorry, but I don't know what else to say. If there were some way I could make up for everything, I'd do it, but I don't think there is such a thing. I don't want to hurt you, but please, I need to explain what I did—I think I know why it hurt you so much."

I grimaced and started to turn away.

"Wait. Please. I promise I won't say anything about . . . about that. Just, please, hear me out."

Hesitantly, I turned back, though I kept my eyes on the counter and idly rolled the cola bottle back and forth between my hooves.

"I made a mistake about you and Starry," Chrys said. "About setting you two up together, I mean. I'm right that you two belong together, but I was wrong about how. I thought you two should be lovers, but after what happened in the forest, I see now: the love between you two is the kind between a mother and son."

I blinked and looked up at her. I was sure I had heard her correctly, but it didn't make sense.

"Whatever you saw in the feeding dream, I'm so sorry. It's not supposed to hurt like that. It's just that, I—" Her ears folded back and again she blushed. "That was my first time doing it. I don't know how to control the dream, and I had the wrong idea about how to inspire it, I—" She stopped and took a deep breath. Her eyes looked into mine, and I felt her hoof rest on top of mine. "I only wanted to make you feel loved."

And then something happened. Chrys leaned forward over the counter, and she kissed me. And I didn't pull away. At least, not right away. Her lips were warm and soft, and I felt her hoof lightly rubbing mine. It all just felt so nice. But then fear crept into my mind and I leaned back. I stared at her. Her eyes sank, and she drew her hoof back. "You're afraid of me," she said. "I . . . I don't blame you. I'm a monster."

"Wait," I said as I reached out to put my hoof on hers. "You're not a monster. It's not you I'm afraid of. It's me. I'm scared that—" I glanced back over my shoulder at the ponies sleeping at their tables. "Is there somewhere more private we can talk?"

Chrys motioned for me to come behind the counter with her, and she lead me through the door at the back. The room beyond was a stockroom, with various supplies organized onto shelves, but was also apparently where Chrys slept. She had a bed in the far corner, and a small vanity table next to it with a cracked mirror and several small boxes carefully arranged around it.

I sat down on the bed beside Chrys, and looked across into the mirror, at our reflections; the single, long crack that ran jaggedly down its length divided us from each other.

"What you said, I—" I sighed. "Starry said that the Mint-Als made her feel invincible. But they didn't actually make her invincible. And that feeling nearly killed her. You said you wanted me to feel loved, but is that all? Only a feeling? When you fed off me, I felt loved, but I knew it wasn't real. That's what hurt so much. I just . . . I don't want to see some illusion. When you kissed me just now, I felt like . . ."—I bit my lip—"like it was you, really you."

I gazed at her through her reflection in the mirror. "And I liked that. But I pulled away because—because I don't know . . . I was afraid that I might try to use you just to make myself feel better."

Chrys gently leaned her shoulder against mine. "What if I said I'm okay with that?"

"I'm not," I answered. "I don't want to get back at you. I don't want to whisper sweet nothings in your ear. I want—" There weren't any words to follow that. "I don't know what I want."

"Do you want to kiss me again?"

I looked at her directly, into her bright eyes, and I felt a smile cross my face. "I think so . . ."

"You think so?" Chrys giggled.

My ears burned as I blushed and stammered, "I—I mean, I guess—I—"

"Shh." She smiled at me as she put her hoof on my lips. "I'm only teasing, honey." She took her hoof away slowly. "If you wanna kiss me, then just kiss me. If it makes it easier for you: I'd like it if you did."

Somehow, my blush faded almost instantly. Chrys had a way about her—a shine in her eyes, a soft, inviting tone in her voice, even the slow and careful way that she moved. All that helped me feel at ease in a situation I'd never been in before. It took me a moment, but I worked up the courage to lean over, and I pressed my lips against hers. She pressed back, and we stayed like that for a while. Our lips parted, but only barely. I felt her breath against my lips as I gazed into her eyes.

Then she put her hoof on my chest and slowly slid it up to the collar of my uniform. "Is it alright if I take your uniform off?" she asked softly.

"W—why?" My first thought was to pull away from her, but something in the way her eyes held mine made me feel safe, or at least safe enough to wait for her answer.

"I want to look at your bruises," she said. "You keep them hidden from everypony else. I want to be somepony you can show them to."

I fidgeted. Her request made my heart beat a little faster, but I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened my eyes, she was still sitting there with her hoof on the zipper of my uniform and her eyes looking up into mine, waiting for my consent.

I gave a slow nod, and she slid closer to me while she unzipped my uniform. She reached under it with both forehooves and carefully slipped it off over my shoulders and wings and let it fall. I sat there, shivering, though not from cold, while Chrys moved around to sit behind me on the bed. I felt her hoof brush ever so lightly against my shoulder, and then along the back of my neck. Slowly, my shivering subsided.

"Do they hurt?" Chrys asked.

"No . . . not really. They're all at least a week old," I told her. Then I felt her hoof run along my spine, and I gasped.

"Was that okay?" Her voice carried a slight chuckle with her question, as though she already knew my answer.

"Y—yeah . . . that felt . . . nice."

Chrys began kneading her hooves up and down along my back. I started to feel weak, and she got me to lay down on my belly; then she continued her massage. She was slow, gentle, giving me a kiss on my neck, holding her hoof against mine, or even just backing off for a moment to let me breathe when I needed it.

We fell asleep together in each other's embrace. Her warmth and kindness were a comfort that I hadn't realized I had been missing.

***

It was late the next morning when Starry came downstairs. Her mane was braided, and she was wearing her uniform again, though her cap had apparently been lost somewhere in the forest. She found me making repairs to her radio with Chrys helping me. We were nearly finished, thanks to a fresh supply of scrap components that the town's prospectors had traded to Chrys.

"You were still asleep when I went to check on you earlier," I explained to Starry as she sat down at the table with us. "I didn't want to wake you, and I just thought I'd have another go at putting this thing back together again."

Starry smiled at me, but it was an uneasy smile. She made a noise that was halfway between a groan and a chuckle. "I just can't get rid of this thing, can I?" She saw the puzzled look on my face and sighed. "I broke it on purpose. The first time just a little bit in case I ever needed it, but then you fixed it, so after you left, I smashed it."

I heard a note of regret in her voice, as though she wished she hadn't done it. "Why?" I asked.

Starry didn't answer right away. She looked down at the radio on the table and ran her hoof along the edge of the case. "Remember what I told you about my mission being just a snipe hunt? Well . . . I always kinda knew, I guess. I'm supposed to check in with the Enclave every so often, but doing that always made it feel as if I really were going nowhere. I couldn't just neglect my duty, though, but if the radio were broken, then at least I would have an excuse to not check in." She laughed and put a hoof to her forehead. "Oh, I've been lying to myself for so long."

I looked down at the radio. It wasn't just her link back to the Enclave; it was a tool for communication, and she had been afraid to use it, afraid of what she might hear . . . of what she might say.

For a little while, Starry just stared at the radio. "You know," she said finally, "I don't even really care about my mission anymore. I don't even think I want to go back up there, honestly. But I don't know if I can just abandon them, even if they weren't expecting me to ever come back anyway."

"We could smash it again?" I offered.

Chrys cringed. "At least let me get the salvaged parts back from it first. That's good trading stock!"

We all shared a brief laugh. Then Starry let out a heavy sigh. "Well, you put so much work into it. Let's see if it works first anyway, and then maybe I'll think about what to do."

I smiled. We put the last few components in place and closed it up. With a little bit of trepidation, I hovered my hoof over the power switch. "You know, since I've been out here, it seems as though every time I turn on a radio, I hear some strange message that almost sounds like it's specifically for me." I let out a tense laugh and flipped the switch.

A familiar voice came on through the radio. It was small, frightened, and lonely:

Day? It's Sweets. We need you. Something's happened. You're the only one who can save us. Please, Day, come back. The overstallion agreed to pardon you. Hurry. We won't last long without you.

The air was silent for a moment before the message repeated—a recorded distress call on a loop.

Day? It's Sweets. We need you . . .

I couldn't take my eyes off the speaker, but I didn't need to look up to feel Starry and Chrys staring at me. I trembled.

"My little brother . . ."

Chapter 9: Stable Seven

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

My little brother was in trouble, and I was the only one who could save him.

Starry had to hold me back as I struggled to rush out to save my little brother. Between her and Chrys, they managed to convince me to calm down long enough to realize that I couldn't go unprepared. Once she was sure that I wouldn't bolt, Starry went upstairs to get my saddlebag for me.

I sat back down at the table and put my hoof on the radio; it had been turned off, but I could still hear my little brother's voice; it was burned into my ears, crying for my help.

Chrys put her hoof on top of mine. "The message said you were being pardoned. Does that mean . . . you won't be coming back?"

"I . . . I don't know. I wasn't really thinking about that part." I closed my eyes and nuzzled back with a heavy sigh. "I guess so. I mean, it's safer in there. And I'll be with Sweets again." I opened my eyes to look at Chrys, and suddenly I realized . . . "I won't see you again, will I?"

She nodded solemnly. "I guess not; I can't go with you on this. My home is here, and I wouldn't know what to do in a stable anyway." Chrys rubbed my shoulder gently. "Do you regret knowing me?"

"I . . . I don't know," I told her. "Last night was . . . I mean . . . I kind of hoped we could do that again. But . . ."

"But your little brother is more important. Don't worry; I understand. I can tell how much you care about him. I imagine you'd move mountains if you had to for him, and nothing—not even wild raiders—could hold you back."

I ran my hoof along the radio some more. "You're right. I would do anything for him." Chrys put her hoof on top of mine again, and I laid my head on her shoulder. "I'll miss you," I said.

She kissed my forehead. "I'll miss you too. I'm glad that I got to know you, even as brief as it's been. You stood up for me when I needed you, and you gave me the strength to protect you when you needed it. I have a feeling that whatever you're about to face will be hard for you—like facing my past was hard for me, but I'm happy for you. You have a home you can finally go back to, and somepony who loves you waiting for you there."

"If it's not too late already." I grimaced; that message could have been playing for days before I heard it. It might have been all that was left of my little brother: just a lonely cry for help echoing across the radio waves.

"Try not to think that way, honey," Chrys said. "If it's too late, then getting yourself all worked up about it won't help. But I want you to know that you've got a home here in case . . . in case things don't work out."

I shuddered to think what could go wrong, but I tried not to dwell on it as Chrys suggested. "Thank you," I told her.

She smiled and kissed me while she ran a hoof along my back. I closed my eyes and returned her kiss, and for that brief moment, I felt calmed. Our lips parted and I gazed into her eyes. Despite how hurt I had felt when she had fed off of me, and despite how hurt I felt about having to leave her behind, I was glad to have known her.

"Alright, Day, let's get moving," said Starry from behind us. I turned to see her wearing her battle saddle and her saddlebags while she held mine out to me.

"You're coming with me?" I asked as I took my saddlebag from her and slipped it on.

"Of course." Starry smiled. "After everything you've followed me through, I can't just let you go it alone from here. I'll help you, your brother, and your stable however I can. I owe you my life. It's the least I can do."

My heart was racing. I was afraid—terrified of what I would find back at the stable. My little brother was in danger, and I had to leave behind the new life I was just starting to get a handle on. But amidst the fear, trepidation, and sorrow, I also felt happy. Starry and Chrys cared about me, and that meant the world to me.

***

When I had first left the stable, I had paced myself along a winding path. And by the time I had made it to Mum's Diner, my wings had ached, in need of rest.

Going back to the stable, Starry and I planned a straight line into the mountains, and I flew as hard as I could push myself. My wing shoulder complained the entire time, but I ignored it. I had too much on my mind to let a sore muscle distract me. Foremost in my thoughts was always my little brother. I would do anything to protect him. But the whole time we were flying, I kept glancing at Starry as she kept pace alongside me. I knew I should tell her about what had happened in the stable—explain to her why I had been exiled. But I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud.

I was afraid of what she would think of me, of what she might try to say. What could she say? Every time I tried to imagine telling her, I saw the feeding dream that the changeling queen had given me. I knew that it hadn't been Starry in that dream, but the image had been so real that even now I can't help but see her looming over me, sneering at me for what I had done.

I think Starry somehow knew that I was worried about what she would find inside the stable. When we landed on the side of the mountain, just outside the cave that lead to the stable door, she stopped me. "Are you sure you want me here for this?"

Both my wings were burning from exhaustion. I had a cramp in my side, and I could hardly breathe after the flight. But without a moment's hesitation, I answered, "I wouldn't be here without you. Whatever's in there, I'm sure I'll need your help."

She smiled at me and nodded. And together, we stepped into the dark cave where I had first emerged from, helpless as a newborn foal.

We didn't have to go far before I could tell that something was very wrong; the stable door was wide open. Inside, only the emergency lighting was on.

"Hello?" I called out as I stepped across the threshold and back into the stable that had once been my whole world.

"Hold it right there!" a voice called back from the doorway across the room. A shadowy figure rose up behind a makeshift barricade. A faint orange glow shone around his horn and around the grip of a pistol. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I'm Lucky Day," I answered. "I heard the distress call. What happened here?"

"Who's that with you?"

"She's my friend, Starry Night. What's going on? Why is the door open? Is my brother okay?"

"I said stay put!" the guard barked as I started to move toward him. After a moment, when he was satisfied that I wasn't coming any closer, his magic aura picked up a small two-way radio. "Sir? The exile's here."

There was a brief silence, and then the radio answered, "Hold him there. I'm on my way."

"Please, can you tell us what's happening?" I asked again.

"Sit down and shut up, exile. I was told not to talk to you, so let's all get along here, alright? Unless you want me to come over there and help you remember where your place is."

"Don't you talk to him like that," Starry said. "He's here to—"

"Starry, it's fine. We'll just wait." I sighed and sat down.

Starry came over next to me. "Day, aren't you worried about your brother? I could barely hold you back earlier. Now you're just going to take this?"

I looked up at her; the silver bars pinned to her uniform glinted in the dim light. "Don't argue with Security. We all have to get along," I said. Something felt strange as I said those words. It had been a reflex. I felt as though my mind had been wrapped up in a warm blanket, equal parts comforting and constricting. I shook my head to loosen it. "I—I am worried, Starry. But . . ." I looked around at the emergency lights, the open door, the security pony behind his overturned table. "I think I know what's wrong here, and I think he's safe. For now at least."

My ears perked up at the sound of hooves running down the corridor. "Hey, kid! Stop! You can't—" the guard yelled, but was cut short as a young unicorn colt ran into him, knocking the guard over, and bounded over the barricade.

"Day!" Sweets came scrambling toward me. "I'm so sorry!" he wailed as he reared up and threw his forelegs around my shoulders.

I hugged him back tightly, wrapping him up in my wings. "Shh. It's okay. It's not your fault."

"I missed you so much, big brother!" He buried his face in my neck.

"I missed you too," I whispered softly as I nuzzled his mane. "Everything's going to be alright. I'm sorry I had to leave you, but I'm here now."

Sweets leaned back to look up at me, his eyes wet. He smiled and let out a small laugh. "I knew you'd come back."

"Sweetie Pie," called a voice. His tone was strong and authoritative, but not forceful; it was the kind of voice that was accustomed to being heard and obeyed—to getting what he wanted without having to ask twice. "Get away from that monster. Come here at once."

I felt Sweets tighten his embrace as I looked up to see the overstallion standing in the doorway, and the guard beside him was just getting to his hooves and brushing himself off.

"He's not a monster! He's my big brother!" Sweets yelled back at him.

"Sweets! You can't . . . argue with the overstallion," I reminded him, gently trying to push him away so he wouldn't get in trouble, but he only held me tighter.

"Oh, come on, can't you let the boy spend some time with his big brother?" Starry stepped up toward the overstallion. "They clearly missed each other."

The overstallion tilted his head forward and furrowed his brow as he looked at Starry over the top of his glasses. "And who are you? I didn't authorize anypony else to enter the stable."

Starry stood up proudly. "Captain Starry Night of the Hundred-Seventy-Third Enclave Engineering Brigade. I've been—" She paused as she glanced over her shoulder at me briefly. "Day and I have been helping each other."

Lifting his gaze, the overstallion adjusted his glasses and harrumphed. "Well, Miss Starry—"

"That's Captain, if you don't mind."

The overstallion furrowed his brow at Starry. "The stable does not recognize your authority, miss. And I don't know about you, but I'm of the opinion that children shouldn't be in the arms of murderers."

Starry pursed her lips and then glanced over at me briefly. "Day told me he killed somepony, but I'm sure it was—"

"It was murder," said the overstallion. "And murder is murder. We don't tolerate that kind of behavior in here."

"He's not a murderer!"

"Sweets. Shh," I hushed him and nuzzled his cheek. "It's okay. I did it to protect you."

The overstallion noisily cleared his throat. "If you're quite finished, I didn't allow you to come back here out of the goodness of my heart so you two could have a teary-eyed reunion." His horn lit up with a pale white aura as he moved the overturned table out of the doorway and motioned for us to follow him. He stopped us, though, as Starry approached. "I'm taking enough of a risk letting him back in here. What makes you think I'm about to allow a complete stranger into my stable?"

"She's my friend," I said. "And she's an engineer. She can help." My personal assurance didn't seem to carry much weight with the overstallion as he silently glared at me over the top of his glasses. "It's the primary spark reactor, isn't it?" I guessed. "That's why you called me back—you need help fixing it."

"How could you possibly know that?" The overstallion narrowed his eyes at me.

"The emergency lights, the open door . . . the stable is running on battery power, and when it runs out, you'll have to abandon the stable." I surmised. "How long do we have?"

He pursed his lips and harrumphed. "The reactor malfunctioned a day and a half ago. From what I've been told, we have enough power to last through the end of tomorrow. Sweetie Pie was very insistent that only you would be able to fix it in time."

"Day knows the reactor better than anypony in the whole stable!" Sweets said proudly. "I remember you showed it to me once, Day! You could name every part I pointed to! Nopony else ever even goes down there. They're all just scratching their heads looking at it now. C'mon! Let's go see it, and then everypony can see how smart you are!" He bounced up and down at my side, and I put a hoof on his shoulder to calm him down.

The overstallion rolled his eyes. "Given the lack of progress so far, I'm inclined to believe him if for no other reason than you couldn't possibly make things worse. Provided"—he added hastily—"that you don't go and turn the rest of my stable into an abattoir."

"I'm not here to murder anypony," I said to the overstallion with a wince. I took a deep breath. "Let's not waste time. If you want to save the stable, don't turn down an extra engineer's help." I nodded in Starry's direction.

He shifted his gaze to Starry and looked her up and down. His expression softened a little and he gave a slight shrug. "Fine. But you must relinquish your weapons," he said to Starry. "Security will return them to you when you leave. And you will leave as soon as power is restored."

Starry glanced at me, and I gave a slight nod. She agreed, and handed over her battle saddle to the guard stationed at the door.

"Come along now," said the overstallion as he led the way into the stable, and we followed.

As we came out through the security checkpoint around the stable entrance, we passed along one of the balconies that overlooked the central atrium. Starry gasped as she looked out over it. Even in the dimness of the emergency lights, we could see nearly the entire core of the stable from the top floor. Roughly one square kilometer in size, the atrium ran the height of the stable, with the orchard at the bottom and open air all the way to the ceiling six floors above it. The residential quarters ringed around the atrium, enough living space for as many as five thousand ponies, though the stable was deathly quiet; emergency procedure was to keep all the residents in their quarters.

I had never seen the stable look so empty before. Even late at night, there was always somepony around, usually others like me who worked late shifts, but sometimes a couple out for a romantic evening in the atrium, or a mother taking her newborn foal for a walk to put him to sleep. But it was all so empty now. And yet it somehow seemed smaller than I remembered it; the safety railings along the balconies looked like prison bars, casting long, dark shadows in the harsh contrast of the emergency lights.

The overstallion, having noticed Starry's amazement at the scale of the stable, started telling her all about how marvelous the stable's design was, and how much of a privilege it was to oversee it as his father had before him.

I might have paid more attention to their conversation as he escorted us down the stairs toward maintenance and the reactor room, but I was too busy listening to my brother tell me about his cutie mark.

"I got it just a couple days ago!" he said as he stopped for a moment under one of the emergency lights to show it off: a black chess pawn set in stark contrast against his pure white coat. "Isn't it amazing?"

"It sure is," I said, smiling. "I'm so proud of you, Sweets. I wish I could have been there to see you get it. I guess you needed to find someone more challenging than me to play against, huh?"

His eyes sank suddenly. "I'm sorry, Day. I didn't want you to miss it. It just kind of happened."

"Sweets . . ." I knelt down next to him and nuzzled his cheek. "It's okay. I'm still proud of you. And I'm here now, so after we fix the reactor, we can celebrate it together. How's that sound?"

He looked up at me and smiled. "Really? You mean it?"

I smiled back at him and nodded. "Of course. Now come on," I said as I lifted him up onto my back; he hugged his forelegs around my neck. "Let's go fix the reactor so we can have that celebration already."

***

The reactor hadn't simply malfunctioned; it had been almost completely dismantled. Pieces of it were scattered all across the room. Of the dozen-or-so engineers in the room, about half of them were in the middle of fondling various parts as though they had never seen a pipe fitting before. The other half—all the senior engineers—were seated around a table at the back of the room, playing a game of cards on top of the reactor schematics.

"What in the names of the goddesses happened here?" I gasped.

Nopony answered me. A few glanced up at me but quickly averted their eyes when they recognized me.

The overstallion cleared his throat, bringing everyone to attention. He reminded them of who I was and why I was there. Nopony said anything, but I saw a number of them glaring at me. "Well, I leave you to it," said the overstallion. "I'll return later to see what progress you've made." He turned to leave. "Come along, Sweetie Pie; let's get you out of the way."

Sweets was still riding on my shoulders, and I felt him squeeze around my neck.

"Sweetie Pie," the overstallion repeated as he looked back at us over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed.

"I want to stay with my big brother!" Sweets cried.

"That choice isn't up to you. Now come here."

"He won't be in the way," I spoke up. "He can even help. I used to bring Sweets with me on my shifts."

The overstallion's eyes met mine. "That choice isn't up to you either," he said slowly, drawing out each syllable as though to make certain that he wasn't being misheard. "I have allowed this reunion to go on long enough."

"Don't make me go," Sweets whimpered as he clung to my neck and buried his face in my mane.

"Sir," Starry interjected. "From the look of things, we really do need all the help we can get if there's any hope of getting this reactor back online before the stable has to be evacuated. If Sweets can help us, then you should let him stay."

The overstallion's eyes shifted over to Starry. "Do you presume to speak for the best interests of my stable, miss? Need I remind you that you are here only at my discretion and I can have you removed at any time? And don't you think for one second"—he pointed his hoof at me—"that simply because I agreed to pardon you that I won't take it back if you start causing trouble."

"That's specious reasoning," Starry said as she stepped up toward the overstallion, putting herself between him and me. "If Day really is the only one capable of fixing this thing—and from what I've seen of the repairs so far, I think he is—then you may as well evacuate now if you think you can actually follow through on a threat like that."

The room was silent; all eyes were on Starry and the overstallion. His eyes darted around the room before settling back on me. His pursed lips drew back into a crooked smile. "You are quite right, miss. It would be foolish of me to throw you both out before repairs are finished. But if Lucky Day wants to stay, and if he ever wants to see his little brother again, for whom he says he committed such a brutal murder, then you both will be on your best behavior while you are here."

Sweets squeezed tighter around my neck, nearly choking me. "Y—you promised he could stay!" he cried. "You promised!"

"That I did," said the overstallion as he adjusted his glasses. "And I'm a fair stallion. So I'll let you stay here for now, Sweetie Pie. You help your brother, and remind him why he's here and why he wants to get along so he can stay. I'll come back for you later."

***

At first we just hung back by the doorway, looking out over the scene in front of us. I wasn't even really sure where to begin; I hadn't known what to expect, but once I had realized that it was the reactor that needed repairs, I'd thought that it would only need an hour or two's work to fix. And perhaps it might have if it hadn't been completely disassembled. We wandered over to the collection of damaged parts that had been separated from the rest and began by examining those.

"Almost looks like a bomb went off in here," Starry whispered to me. "And I say that as a demolitions expert." She let out a short laugh, belied by her otherwise serious tone.

"Some parts of it operate under high pressure," I mumbled. "Maybe if a valve or a seal failed, a pipe might have burst explosively?"

I tried asking one of the engineers, "What happened here?"

She snorted. "It's broken. What's it look like?"

Starry leaned in next to me. "I'm starting to get the impression that nopony in here is very competent. They only took my battle saddle at the entrance and didn't think to search us for other weapons—you've still got your laser pistol in your bags. And now it looks like they don't even know what they're doing here."

"Well, it's like I said the other night at the diner: this thing ran perfectly for two centuries nopony ever needed to know how it worked." I sighed. "We've got a lot of work to do. Let's worry about that right now." I took a quick look around the room. "Wait here a minute," I said. "I'll go get my toolkit."

I headed for the maintenance corridor at the back of the room—it lead directly to maintenance offices and to the lockers and supply rooms.

One of the senior engineers moved to block the door from me, though. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked sternly, looking down his nose at me.

"To the lockers to get my toolbox," I answered.

"What makes you think you have a toolbox? You don't work here. You don't even live here. You'll have to fill out a requisition form and wait for somepony to approve it."

"I—but that's absurd! We need to repair this thing before the end of tomorrow! Just let me get to work!"

"Hey, I don't make the rules, kid. I just follow them. We all gotta get along down here," he sneered.

"I'll just ask somepony to share with me," I mumbled as I turned away from him. But all the engineers I approached would immediately scoop up their tools and hover over them like possessive vultures hoarding their carrion.

"I'm using these," they'd all say.

With each failed attempt, I felt more and more self-conscious about how I must have looked to Starry and Sweets. This was supposed to be my domain—I knew more about the spark reactor than anypony in the stable. Sweets had made such a big deal about it; I couldn't let him down, and certainly not in front of Starry.

Starry had stood up for me enough already. It was my turn to stand up for myself. So I made a break for it. I got out into the maintenance corridor before the senior engineer could block me again. I heard him call after me, but he didn't follow.

The locker room was right around the corner. Inside, I found my locker almost exactly as I had left it; all they'd done was peel off the tape with my name written on it. I grabbed my tools and carried them back to the reactor room.

The senior engineer was standing in the doorway, waiting for me.

"I have work to do," I told him.

"Not with stolen tools, you don't," he said. "Go put those back where you got them, or—"

"Or what?" I snapped at him. "What can you do to me?" I almost instantly regretted saying that; my heart began to race, and I was about to start apologizing profusely, but then I saw the look on the senior engineer's face: he looked afraid.

He started backing up and stammering. "O—or . . . or . . ."

"Or nothing," I said, stepping past him.

After that, the other engineers would move out of the way whenever I went to work on something. The senior engineers even moved their card game so I could get at the schematics. Nopony would say anything to me, but I could hear them whispering and could see them staring at me whenever I glanced over my shoulder.

I tried to simply ignore it, though. If I was going to go back to living in the stable, I'd have to expect that I'd be treated differently. So I focused on the task in front of me.

We started by reassembling some of the smaller components, but after I finished showing Starry and Sweets what to do with the first one, and moved on to a second, I saw one of the engineers pick up the part we'd just finished rebuilding and start taking it apart again.

"What are you doing? Stop! No, don't—" I cringed as I watched him simply drop the component; it landed on the table with a loud clang which immediately drew everypony's attention and turned the quiet murmur of activity in the room to complete silence. "I just finished putting that back together. Why are you taking it apart?" I demanded.

"I—I was just looking to see if it needed fixing . . ."

I put a hoof to my forehead. "Nothing here needs fixing except the pile of scrap in the corner," I explained through gritted teeth. "You don't have any idea what you're doing, do you?" A blank, slack-jawed stare was his only answer. I couldn't believe it: the stable was going to fail by the end of the next day and nopony seemed to appreciate what that meant. I knew what it meant, though: it meant my little brother would be forced out into the wasteland.

I wouldn't let that happen.

"None of you know what's going on here at all! You're all fumbling around down here just trying to look busy, and somehow expecting everypony else to get this thing working before the emergency power runs out."

Nopony said anything as I looked around the room. They all had the same blank stare on their faces, as if to plead ignorance of their own ignorance, and as if that were any excuse.

"Get out!" I yelled. "All of you, just get out! You're all useless!"

At first nopony moved. They all exchanged glances with each other briefly, then collectively shrugged and started walking out—none of them even cared about what they were working on. Even the senior engineers didn't seem to mind being chased out by me. And somehow I wasn't even surprised that they listened to me—or maybe they were simply happy for an excuse to leave.

The engineer I'd accosted hesitated. "I . . . I want to help," he said.

I sighed and rubbed my temple. "Just go."

He nodded slowly and turned to leave with the others. And I went to stand on the side of the room with Starry and Sweets, keeping out of the way while everypony filed out.

One of the junior engineers—a zebra mare whose name I couldn't seem to remember anymore—stopped in front of us on her way. She glared at me briefly. "You don't belong here, little bird." Then a smug grin crept across her face as she glanced over at Starry. "Did he tell you how he butchered his own mother?"

Hearing her say that was like a kick in the chest. My heart skipped a beat and I felt Sweets cling tightly against my leg. Slowly, Starry turned back to look at me, her eyes wide. "Day? Is . . . is that true?"

"Oh, it's quite true: stabbed her in the throat over a dozen times while she slept, I'm told," the mare said with a laugh.

"It's not his fault!" Sweets screamed.

"It's okay, Sweets. Don't argue." I took a deep breath and nodded slowly. My eyes stayed fixed on the floor under Starry's hooves. "It's true."

"Day . . . what happened?"

"She was killing him!" Sweets cried out. "It had to be done!"

"Sweets! Please, let me handle this." I felt him shaking against me. I was shaking too. "I had to protect my little brother. It was the only way." I looked up at Starry and saw that her face wasn't angry like I expected. If anything, she looked . . . sad. I couldn't hide my shame any longer. "She hit us. All the time. I tried to protect Sweets; I let her hit me instead. But it was getting worse. She . . . she was going to kill me if it didn't stop." I looked down at Sweets, the little brother I'd do anything to protect. "If it were just me, I'd have let her. But I had to keep my little brother safe." I closed my eyes and nuzzled into Sweets's mane. "She can't hurt you anymore."

The zebra gave an impassive snort, apparently content with forcing a confession out of me, and she turned and left. Then the three of us were all alone in the reactor room.

For a while, nopony said anything, and none of us moved. I hadn't wanted it to come out that way. I cursed myself for not having the courage to tell Starry what happened myself when I'd had the chance. But now she'd heard it. I couldn't change it. "You must think I'm a monster," I whispered with a cringe. "I mean . . . what kind of person murders his own mother?" I pulled Sweets into a tight embrace, wrapping him in my wings.

Starry didn't answer right away. She was silent for a minute, and then she sighed. "I don't know what to think. You said she beat you, and if you were afraid for your life, then . . ." She put her hoof on my shoulder. "I believe you. And I don't blame you. But wasn't there any other way?"

I squeezed Sweets and kissed his forehead. "Go see if you can put some of the smaller components back together. I need to talk to Starry for a bit."

My little brother looked up at me. "Not a monster . . ." he whimpered quietly.

I hugged him one last time before I let him go. He needed a little encouragement, but I got him to busy himself with cleaning up the mess of reactor parts that littered the room. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere," I told him.

"Day . . . couldn't you tell somepony?" Starry asked.

"Who would I tell? Security?" I shook my head. "They'd have told me to stop making trouble and get along like a good little pony, and then they'd probably throw me in a detention cell overnight for good measure to make sure I got the message. Meanwhile, Sweets would be left all alone with her. I couldn't just abandon him like that.

"If anypony noticed, nopony cared. And what would they have done anyway? Report it to Security?" I let out a short laugh, though it sounded more like a cry. "When I got hurt, I told everyone I fell. Nopony asked any questions."

I looked up at Starry, and I pleaded, "What should I have done?"

Again, she didn't answer right away. I felt the seconds drag on into minutes as we both stood there in silence. A few times, Starry opened her mouth as though to say something, but she closed it without a word almost immediately. I felt as if I were holding my breath the entire time, waiting to hear her speak, but I couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted to hear: Part of me wanted her to tell me that there wasn't anything I could have done—to absolve me of my guilt; if there was no other way out of it, then that's all there was to it, and it was just a bad result of a bad situation. But another part of me wanted her to come up with some solution, some magical thing that I could have said or done that would have spared us all such misery—something that would be so obvious in hindsight that of course it was all my fault for letting this happen, and I deserve exactly what I got for it.

"I don't know," she said at last. "I mean . . . was it really so bad that you were afraid she was going to kill you?"

"I . . . I don't know." I looked down at my hooves. "It was getting worse. A month ago, she . . . she beat me so bad that Sweets had to help me get to medical. By the time we got there, I couldn't breathe—the doctors told me that a broken rib had punctured my lung. I honestly felt like I was going to die, and all I could think about was how, if I did, I'd be leaving Sweets all alone with her."

I sighed. "She didn't used to be like that, you know. Before Sweets was born, she mostly just left me alone."

"You mean she neglected you?"

"No. Well . . . I mean . . . I never really thought of it like that, but to hear you say it that way . . ." I shrugged. "I was pretty much on my own before I even had my cutie mark. And even when I did get my cutie mark . . ." I put a hoof up to my left ear and felt along the torn edge there. I let out a mirthless laugh. "I remember when the air conditioner unit for our section had malfunctioned. They told us that somepony from maintenance was working on it, but the day went on and it only got hotter and stuffier. So I wandered off on my own to see what was taking so long. I found the air conditioner, but the engineer working on it was nowhere to be seen. Parts were scattered all over the floor, and he even left his tools sitting out."

I looked at the scene around me: reactor parts and tools littered the floor. I noticed Starry following my gaze out of the corner of my eye. "They aren't just bits of metal to me—they're pieces to a puzzle—bigger and more complicated than any of those cardboard cutout childrens' toys that I loved to play with," I told her. A smile crept across my face as I thought back to that air conditioner. "I'd already played with every toy puzzle in the stable dozens of times, and they were all too easy—I even put them together upside down so I couldn't see the pictures. But this was a real puzzle! One with moving parts that fit together in three dimensions!

"I found the piece that didn't fit right, and I found the matching replacement part from the spares that were mixed in with the tools, and I started putting it all back together myself. The engineer came back just as I was finishing up. I was still crawling around inside the access panel when he started yelling at me for messing around with his tools, but then he just stopped. It was right when I hooked the power back up that he told me I just got my cutie mark. I was so excited that I got careless and clipped my ear on the radiator fan as I was backing out from under it. It bled all over the place, but I didn't care: I had my cutie mark.

"Mom yelled at me for going off by myself. She didn't really care about what happened. I don't even think she knew I had been gone. But that engineer got me apprenticed into maintenance after that, and that's where I started spending all my time."

Starry reached out to me and put her hoof on my shoulder.

My smile faded as I looked over at Sweets. He was still busy reconstructing one of the compressors that had been needlessly taken apart by the other engineers. "She started getting mean when she got pregnant with Sweets. At first it was only a lot more yelling, and I figured that it was just hormones or something or that she was mad at whoever his father is—I don't even know who my father is; could be the same guy for all I know. But I just assumed that it was something that would get better after she gave birth. I learned to be really quiet and careful around her—'yes, ma'am,' 'no, ma'am,' 'sorry, ma'am'—and I just waited for her to get better.

"But after Sweets was born . . . she came home with him, and he was crying. Mom put him in my room and told me to keep him quiet while she got some sleep. I tried giving him a bottle, but it didn't help. She kept yelling—at him to be quiet, at me to do something . . .

"I didn't know what else to do, so I tried to entertain him: silly faces, stuffed toys, nothing seemed to work, and I could hear mom getting angrier every time she yelled. And then I tried walking on the ceiling."

"Walking on the ceiling?"

"Yeah—fly upside down and put your hooves on the ceiling. You should have seen the look on Sweets's face. It was . . ." I let out a small laugh and shook my head slowly. "I fell in love with him when I saw that happy little face looking up at me like I had just done the most amazing thing in the world." I looked down at my hooves. "That's when mom came in. She saw me up on the ceiling and she yelled at me to get down. And as soon as I landed, that's when she hit me for the first time. It wasn't really that hard, but I fell over and dislocated my wing. I started to cry, but she screamed at me to be quiet, so I held it in, and she went back to bed.

"I had to take Sweets with me to medical to get my wing treated; I was terrified to leave him alone with her—if he started crying again . . . what she might do to him . . . and she never did get any better."

***

After telling her about my mother, Starry and I didn't say very much to each other aside from what we needed to coordinate the repairs. Most of that work was relatively simple; most of the parts we had were intact, and we couldn't do anything with the damaged ones until the main body of the reactor was back in one piece, so we focused on that. Starry had a little trouble since she had never worked with anything like it before, but whenever she asked for my help reading the schematics, I had the feeling that she was asking me only so I could feel good about knowing the answer. Not that I minded—I did feel good about it, and she kept looking at me with this proud smile—the kind I often looked at Sweets with.

And I had plenty of opportunity to look at Sweets with that smile while we were making repairs; he had barely even needed to glance at the schematics once and he knew exactly where every part or tool he needed was and how to fit them together. Every time he finished rebuilding one of the smaller components, he'd rush over to show me, bounce up and down while I inspected it, and then rush off to start on another one. It filled me with joy to see him like that—I felt as though I had done right in taking care of him, raising him, and protecting him from our mother. I felt confident that as long as he could stay inside the stable, he'd be alright.

With that one important goal in mind, I made sure that we made good progress on repairing the reactor. Among the three of us, we managed to reconstruct most of it by the time the overstallion returned.

"Where is everypony?" he asked from the doorway.

"I told them to leave," I answered. "We made better progress without—"

"After insisting that I allow an outsider into the stable, and that I should allow Sweetie Pie to stay here, both under the pretense of assisting with repairs because 'we need all the help we can get,' you dismiss an entire crew of workers? And you dare call this"—he gestured toward the still-incomplete reactor—"'better progress'? Celestia forbid you had let them help; we might have full power restored by now."

I balked and lowered my head, my ears folding back. "I—I'm sorry, sir."

"Don't apologize, Day," Starry said as she stepped forward to face the overstallion. "He was right to dismiss them. They got in our way, wouldn't provide us with tools, and apparently the only thing they've done so far was to take the whole thing apart just to look busy. We've worked hard all day to put this back together. If it hadn't been stripped apart in the first place, we might actually have had power restored by now."

The overstallion glared at Starry over the top of his glasses. "I remind you of your place, miss."

Starry snorted. "I remind you that without us, your whole stable will be out in the wasteland where you're not going to find enough food or water for your entire population. So you should be grateful for our help because it's the only way you're going to get this reactor back online before the emergency power runs out at the end of tomorrow."

I felt Sweets move up alongside me, and I hugged a wing around him gently.

The overstallion cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. "Power will be restored by then, won't it?"

Starry glanced back at me.

I nodded. "We should be able to finish repairs by about noon tomorrow, sir."

"Good. Keep at it."

"Actually, sir, we can't really continue working tonight. The spark capacitor is completely burned out," I explained. "And it's the only part we don't have a spare for. Starry knows of an old Stable-Tec factory nearby where we can get one, but it's too dark outside to go salvaging now; we'll have to wait until morning." We were also exhausted from working all day, but I didn't bother mentioning that part to the overstallion.

"You're certain you'll be able to find and retrieve this replacement in time?"

"Finding things is my special talent," Starry said with a smirk.

"Well then, if there's nothing else to be done tonight, Lucky Day, your old quarters are vacant; you may return to them. Miss Starry, you may share his quarters while you are here. Sweetie Pie, it's time to come home."

Sweets hugged my foreleg tightly. "I want to go home with Day," he said.

I pulled my wing tighter around him. "Where has my little brother been living?"

"With me and my family, of course," the overstallion said with a small chuckle. "I'm like a father for the entire stable—it's my duty to make sure everypony is safe and cared for. Naturally, when I heard about the horrible murder that had left this poor young boy without a mother to raise him, I adopted him myself. Now, Sweetie Pie, come along. It's time for dinner."

"I want to go home with Day!" he cried again.

"Sweets, I . . . I think you should go with him," I said, though it broke my heart. I wanted to take care of Sweets as I always had, but I couldn't fight the overstallion over it; he could make sure I'd never see my little brother at all. "We'll see each other tomorrow, okay? And then we'll celebrate your cutie mark after the repairs are finished. I promise." Sweets looked as though he were about to cry, and I hugged him tightly and nuzzled his mane.

"This hasn't been easy on either of them," Starry said. "Can't you work something out? If not for Day, then for Sweets—if you want to be his father, then don't make this harder for him; give him time to adjust."

"You certainly don't have any compunctions about telling me what I should or shouldn't do, do you?" the overstallion said dryly. After a pause, he let out a sigh. "Very well. The two of you may join us for dinner." Sweets perked up almost immediately. "But after that, I don't want to hear any more arguments. Am I clear, Sweetie Pie? After dinner, you're going straight to bed."

"Yes, sir," Sweets said. He wasn't entirely enthusiastic about it, I could tell, but even if it was only for another hour or so, it would be good to spend time together again.

"Thank you, sir," I said, grateful for his hospitality.

***

Sweets rode on my back again as we walked to the overstallion's quarters on the top floor of the stable where all the administrative offices were. He was quiet for most of the way; it had been a long day, and I could tell by the way he laid his head on the back of my neck with his forelegs limply clinging around my shoulders that he was tired. I would have put him to bed, but that wasn't my decision to make anymore.

The overstallion's horn lit up to enter a password on the console by the door to his quarters. The door opened, and I was blinded momentarily: full lights were on inside, much brighter than the emergency lights that I had grown accustomed to. Starry and I both cringed, waiting for our eyes to adjust as we followed the overstallion into his home.

"I'm home, darling," he announced as he continued up the entry hall into the living room.

"Dinner's almost ready," answered his wife, her head poking out from the kitchen's doorway. A half-emptied bottle of apple wine floated in her ruby aura next to her. "Oh, we have guests. Well come in! Make yourselves at home. You know I just love it when we have company for dinner!" she said with a boisterous, though strained, laugh. "Boys," she called. "Set the table for two more."

"Yes, mother," came the simultaneous reply from two young, monotone voices. The sounds of movement and of dinnerware being rearranged in the dining room followed shortly after.

The overstallion's wife trotted out to meet us, wine bottle in tow. "Are these friends of yours from work?" she asked after giving her husband a kiss on his cheek.

"In a manner of speaking," he answered. "This is Lucky Day; he's Sweetie Pie's brother."

"Oh, well it's so nice to finally meet you, Lucky," she said with a wide, cheery smile. "Sweetie has been such a joy to have with us this last week. My, how he does go on about you." She laughed. "Look at the poor thing, all tuckered out on you there. Looks like he's already asleep."

She turned to Starry. "And are you their mother?" she asked.

"No, dear," the overstallion cut in. "Their mother is dead, remember?"

"Oh, yes, that's right. Terrible business, that. I'm so sorry about your loss. You know, if I had known you were coming to dinner, I would have baked you a pie to send you home with."

"I . . . um, thanks?" I said, unsure of how exactly to respond. "Why don't you let me go put Sweets to bed?"

"Go right ahead, dear. It's the last door on the right," said the overstallion's wife, pointing me down the hallway. I thanked her and then excused myself, carrying Sweets down to his room while Starry introduced herself.

Inside the room was dark. I left the door open, using only the light from the hallway to find my way over to the bed and carefully slide Sweets off my shoulders. He opened his eyes and sat up almost immediately. "Sorry," I whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"I wasn't really sleeping," he said. "I just didn't want to have to talk to them."

I glanced over my shoulder at the hallway. I could hear the overstallion's wife laughing again between mumbles of idle conversation—conversation I was certainly glad to have gotten away from, even if only for a few minutes; I don't think I had ever heard so many meaningless comforts—so many sweet nothings—all at once. I certainly didn't blame Sweets for wanting to get away from it.

"Have you been okay living here?" I asked Sweets. "Nopony's hurting you, right?"

"I'd rather live with you, Day." He pouted.

"I know, but we can't do anything about that. Not right now, at least. Are you going to be alright staying here?" I stroked a hoof through his mane gently. "I know this probably isn't anything like what you wanted—I know I never planned it this way—but as long as you stay safe, we can work things out."

He looked up at me and gave a small nod. I smiled and kissed his forehead, and then tucked him into bed. "Get some sleep. We'll see each other in the morning, okay? I love you, Sweets."

"I love you too, big brother."

I stood in the doorway, taking one last look at my little brother before I closed the door.

I returned to the living room to find everypony in the middle of laughing—presumably at some joke I'd been too late to hear—though nopony's laughter sounded quite right: the overstallion had a dry, humoring chuckle; his wife's was as overblown and strained as ever; and Starry had a visibly forced grin that looked as uncomfortable as her laugh sounded. She glanced at me, and in her eyes I could see a desperate plea for escape.

"Sweets is asleep," I said, clearing my throat. "So I guess we don't need to stay for dinner after all."

"Oh, nonsense!" cried the overstallion's wife. "You're already here. What kind of hostess would I be if I didn't let you stay?"

"It's alright," I said. "I'm more tired than hungry myself anyway." Starry nodded in agreement with me.

"Very well, then," said the overstallion with a dismissive wave of his hoof. "You may return to your old quarters; they're still unoccupied. And don't worry, we cleaned up the mess you left behind. But, Miss Starry, certainly you'll stay for dinner, won't you? When you're minding your manners, you're actually surprisingly pleasant. And remarkably attractive as well."

His wife let out another of her laughs. "Oh, dear, you're such a kidder!" she said as she took a drink from the wine bottle she still carried—which I noticed had been reduced to only a quarter full while I had been putting Sweets to bed—and disappeared back into the kitchen.

"I think it's best if I call it a night as well," Starry said. Together, we turned and headed for the door.

I reached the door ahead of Starry and when I looked back, I saw her back at the other end of the hall. The overstallion was talking to her; he had his foreleg stretched out in front of her, his hoof against the wall, blocking her path. "You know, I can see about making alternate sleeping arrangements for you," he said. "So you don't have to sleep with a murderer."

Starry narrowed her eyes at him and turned to walk around him. "I don't think so."

The overstallion turned with her and grabbed her foreleg with his. His voice deepened. "I didn't ask you to think."

Before I even knew what happened, Starry had the overstallion on the ground. She stood over him with a hoof on his chest. "Touch me again and I'll break your leg," she said calmly. The overstallion was too busy gasping and wheezing, having had the wind knocked out of him, to say anything, but Starry didn't seem interested in hearing a response as she simply stepped over him on her way to the door.

We left together in silence. The whole time we walked, I kept staring at Starry. I had once thought that her confident stride was like that of somepony from Security, but as I watched her then, I saw that wasn't it. Hers wasn't the walk of somepony with power; it was that of somepony who wasn't afraid of those with power. And in that moment of realization, I admired her more than anything or anyone I had ever known. Remembering what Chrys had told me about her, if I could have chosen anypony to be my mother, I would have chosen Starry.

It wasn't until we reached my quarters that I asked, "What happened with the overstallion . . ."

Starry smiled and shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I've seen his type plenty: he's just a bully who's used to getting what he wants. But he has no idea how to react when somepony actually stands up to him. He doesn't scare me, and you shouldn't let him scare you either."

I nodded slowly. "I'll try not to."

Starry and I both retired for the evening. She went to sleep in my mother's old room, while I returned to mine. Everything was perfectly sterile, as if nopony had ever lived there, with only the barest furniture that came installed in all the quarters: a bed, a nightstand, desk, and dresser.

The stable moved on, forgot. As though nothing ever happened. The stable would always be the same.

***

It's strange being in the stable again. It's barely been a week since I was exiled, but everything seems so different now. Everything, everypony here is exactly the same, though—nothing changes inside the stable.

And yet it feels different to me. Have I really changed that much?

But I got to see that Sweets was safe here without me. Everything that I've been through since that fateful morning has been worth it, if only for that. I had been so worried that I had done the wrong thing. Seeing that he's safe, and that he's being taken care of, though, I feel alright about what I did. I had to do it. I had to—

"Day?"

"Sweets? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?"

"I couldn't sleep. So I snuck out to see you."

"Oh. I don't think the overstallion will like that."

"I don't care about him, Day! I just want to stay with you!"

"Sweets . . ."

"Don't you want to stay with me?"

"I . . . of course I do. Come on up, I guess. Just like old times, right?"

"Just like old times!"

. . .

"Day?"

"Yeah, Sweets?"

"I'm sorry you had to—"

"Shh. It's not your fault. I'm supposed to protect my little brother."

. . .

"Day?"

"Yeah, Sweets?"

"It's good, right? Good that she's . . ."

". . . Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"Thank you, Day. I love you."

"I love you too, little brother."

Chapter 10: Sweet Nothings

The best laid plans . . .

I didn't need to open my eyes to know I was awake; my dreams were never so happy. Sweets was there with me. I felt his breath against my neck as I held him tightly. The bed was warm and soft, and I just wanted to stay there, safe and secure. From how tightly my little brother was holding me, I knew he wanted to stay too—wanted me to stay.

He was a good pony. He didn't deserve . . . he didn't deserve our mother. He didn't deserve what I had to do. He didn't deserve any of it.

He deserved a better life than what the stable had to offer.

. . . But that was the best life there was.

So I held him. I held my little brother close. I nuzzled the top of his head, smelled his mane, and just . . . laid there with him.

But a part of me already knew that it couldn't last. All the more reason to keep holding on to him while I could. All I ever wanted was to keep my little brother safe. I already knew how far I'd go to protect him . . . knew I'd do it all over again if I had to.

Of course, that part of me was right, and our peaceful morning together didn't last forever. A loud pounding against the door to our quarters broke us out of our embrace, and we both sat upright. There was muffled yelling, and then I heard the door opening.

I jumped out of bed and opened the door to my room to look out into the living room. The overstallion was there, along with a mare from security.

"Where is Sweetie Pie?" the overstallion demanded.

"Day? What's going on?" Sweets asked, coming up to my bedroom door.

I moved to keep him behind me. "Stay back, Sweets. What's this about?" I asked the overstallion.

Ignoring me, the overstallion made a move toward us. "There you are. Come—" He stopped abruptly when I flared out my wings and stamped my hoof. He leveled his gaze at me. "Sweetie Pie is my responsibility now," he said. "I told him to stay in his room, but he snuck out to come here. You have to get along with everypony, Sweetie Pie." His voice was at once stern and demanding and sickly-sweet. "Now come here."

"I don't want to stay with you!" Sweets yelled as he crawled under me and looked out from between my forelegs. "I want to stay with my big brother!"

"Sweets, let me handle this, please," I said quietly to him, trying to hold him back.

"I don't want to go!"

"It's okay. You don't have to go." I put my hoof on his shoulder and felt him calm down. I looked up at the overstallion. "He doesn't have to go."

The overstallion raised an eyebrow at me. "Come now, Lucky Day. We have to get alo—"

"No."

"Excuse me?" He blinked.

"I said no. I'm not going to let you take my little brother away from me." I took a step forward. "You've seen what I'm willing to do to protect my little brother. You already exiled me once. Do you think I'm afraid to do it again?"

Everypony was quiet. The overstallion opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. He glanced at the security mare and jerked his head in my direction. She floated out her baton and started toward me. I took another step forward, and she stopped.

"I killed a mare on my second day outside. She had a sledgehammer a lot bigger than your little stick. You wanna see if you've got better luck?"

She didn't move. I took a step, and she backed up.

"Th—there's no need for this to get ugly, Lucky Day. We can all get along here." The overstallion put his hoof on the mare's shoulder, and she put her baton away. "You've been away from your brother for a long time, Sweetie Pie," he said, clearing his throat. "We'll let you two catch up. I expect you home for dinner, though. Lucky Day, perhaps you should join us again. I'm sure your brother will like that."

The two of them slowly backed their way out into the corridor as I glared at them while advancing slowly.

"We'll think about it," I said as I pushed the button to close the door.

No sooner had the door closed than I felt the blood drain from my face and my legs go limp. I leaned into the door and slumped down against it. Sweets rushed up to me and threw his forelegs around my neck in a tight embrace.

"That was incredible, Day! Nopony will ever mess with us again!"

I clasped my hooves on Sweets's cheeks to hold him steady and to make sure he looked right at me. "Promise me, Sweets. Promise me you'll never do that. You should never talk to Security or the overstallion like that."

"But you—"

"I shouldn't have done that, Sweets. Being outside changed me. I don't get along like I used to anymore—I don't fit in here. Please, Sweets, promise me you won't try to be like me."

"I . . . I promise . . ."

Hearing those words, I let go of his face and pulled my little brother into a tight embrace. The panic I had felt immediately following the overstallion's departure melted away in Sweets's warmth.

"Day? Is everything alright?" came Starry's voice from the doorway to our mother's room.

Sweets shrieked and clung to me tighter.

"It's okay. It's only Starry," I reassured him. "She's my friend. She's here to help, remember?" I felt him shaking against me as he stared across the room at her. I stroked my hoof along his mane to try to calm him down. "We're alright, Starry. Just a little shaken up is all. The overstallion was just here." I looked up at her. "Is it time to go get the new capacitor?"

Starry walked out toward us slowly, but stopped a few feet away. "You know, actually, I can probably handle it on my own. There's no need you should have to come with me, so you can stay here with Sweets." She knelt down and ducked her head to look at Sweets on his level, smiling at him. "That sound good to you?"

Sweets's trembling stopped, and he looked up at me, smiling. "It's all I ever wanted."

***

"Check," said Sweets as he put his pawn down where my knight had just been. We were playing chess while waiting for Starry to return with the replacement spark capacitor.

I looked over the board. "And mate next move; nothing I can do to stop it." I reached out and shook hooves with Sweets in resignation. It was the third game he'd won since we'd started. I smiled as I watched him reset all the pieces.

"Remember the first time you beat me?" I asked, laughing softly. "You were so upset about it. You even tried to invent an escape for me when I wouldn't let you take your move back."

Sweets's cheeks flushed. "I thought you'd be mad, and . . . you're my big brother; you're supposed to be so much smarter about everything. I thought if I won against you . . . if I was better than you, you wouldn't want to play anymore." He rolled his king back and forth between his hooves for a little bit before putting it on the board.

Reaching across the board, I tousled his mane. "And now I can't even remember the last time I won against you." I chuckled and made my opening move.

"Last month," Sweets said as he took his turn. "When you were in Medical, recovering from your collapsed lung. You did something I didn't expect you to do: you sacrificed your queen. It opened up a hole in the pawn defense, and then you pinned the king with your knight and finished him off with your rook." It never ceased to amaze me how he seemed to remember every move of every game we had ever played.

"Ah. I guess I just forgot because I had other things on my mind back then," I said. "All I remember from then was how worried I was about you being on your own while I was stuck in Medical."

Our conversation quieted as we focused more on the game. I could tell I was starting to lose already, though; my mind hadn't really been on the game—it hadn't been all morning, and finally I decided to say what I needed to say to Sweets, what had been running through my mind ever since I'd scared off the overstallion that morning.

"I don't think I can stay in the stable after we finish the repairs," I told him.

He didn't say anything; only stared up at me, looking as though he weren't sure he'd heard me right.

I sighed. "I don't fit in here anymore, but I have a home with Starry I can go to outside."

Sweets's jaw trembled. "Y—you'll take me with you . . . right?"

I closed my eyes tightly and shook my head. "I can't. It's too dangerous outside."

"You'll protect me! You always protect me!"

"I can barely protect myself out there, Sweets. But with Mom gone—"

"D—did I do something wrong?" Tears welled up in his eyes.

"No! No, Sweets. Of course not. It's just that—"

"Then why are you leaving me, Day?" he cried. "I got the overstallion to let you come back so we could be together again! I did it all for you!"

"Sweets, it's not about that. I'm just trying to think of what's best for you: you're safe in here, but nopony trusts me anymore. If I stay, it'll make things harder for you. You need to start taking care of yourself now. I don't want to leave you, but—"

"You're lying!" he screamed as he lifted the chessboard in his magic and flung it across the room where it crashed against the wall and sent pieces scattering everywhere. "You wouldn't leave if you didn't want to! Why, Day? Why don't you want to stay with me?"

I reached out to put a hoof on his shoulder, but he ducked away. "Don't touch me!" he yelled. "You can't leave! You can't!"

"Sweets, please, just . . ." I tried to reach for him again, but he ran off, crying. I wanted to go after him, but he was too upset to listen to me. I figured that he simply needed some time to calm down, and then I could try talking to him again later. So I stayed behind. I busied myself with picking up the chess pieces, arranging them in their starting positions on the board to keep track of them.

There was one piece missing at the end: one of the black pawns. I searched all over the room, but couldn't find it. It had simply vanished. And as I sat there, alone, looking over the incomplete chessboard, I thought back to the first time Sweets had been the one to teach me something about chess: I had advanced one of my pawns two squares from its starting position, thinking it was safe there, and then Sweets made it disappear, simply vanish—he captured it with one of his pawns in a move I'd never seen before. En passant, he'd called it. It was an obscure rule that I hadn't known about. He'd read about it in the stable library all on his own. I had been surprised, but proud of him; my little brother was getting smarter, growing older, becoming independent.

Sweets had needed to grow up so fast, faster than he should have. And I knew how much it must have hurt him to be faced with losing me a second time—I hurt just as much to think about losing him again. But I had seen the world outside through the eyes of a stable dweller, and now I had seen the stable through the eyes of an outsider too. I had never really belonged in either world, but I knew I had to spare Sweets from the horrors that lurked outside. And part of that meant I had to leave him. I was stained by the wasteland—the way I had threatened the overstallion proved it. If I stayed, Sweets would be tainted by me.

I had protected my little brother his entire life. But now I would be his greatest danger.

***

When Starry returned, she found me sitting under a tree in the orchard. It was dark; the emergency lights didn't reach that far into the void that was the atrium. "Day? Where's Sweets?" she asked.

"We got into an argument. He ran off," I told her.

She looked around, and twitched her ears back and forth. "Do you know where he went? Will he be alright?"

"He could be anywhere." I shrugged. "He knows the stable at least as well as I do. He'll be safe. He's just upset because . . ." I sighed. "I told him I wasn't going to stay in the stable."

Starry didn't say anything right away. Instead, she walked over and knelt down beside me. There was a slight breeze from the ventilation system that ran through the atrium, filling the silence with the calm rustling of leaves above us.

"Oh, wow," she said at last, and I turned my head to see that she was looking up. I followed her gaze up into the dark void of the atrium. Through the rustling leaves, we could see the emergency lights as small points twinkling in the darkness. "I never thought I'd see the stars below the clouds . . ."

"I've never seen the stable this way before," I said. "But it's always been like this, hasn't it? Those lights have always been there; I've simply never been able to see them before. I've seen so much in the week since my exile." I lowered my gaze down to the silver bars on Starry's collar; they glinted in the darkness. "What are you going to do after you leave here? Are you going to go back to the Enclave?"

"I . . . don't really know," she said after a long pause. "I suppose I'll go back to the diner first and figure out the rest from there. But . . . well, I can understand why you don't want to stay here. And I think I'd feel the same if I went back to the Enclave."

"The diner's not so bad. But I can't bring Sweets out there with me. Even if I can't stay here, the stable is still the safest place for him. Isn't it?"

Starry nodded. "Lots of foals grow up in the wasteland, but a lot more of them never get the chance to grow up. I can't blame you for wanting to keep your little brother here."

"You think I should let him come with me?"

"I think you know better than anypony what's best for him; you've been taking care of him for his whole life." Starry paused, and I let out a long sigh. "You wouldn't have to leave right away," she said, putting a hoof on my shoulder. "You could stay here for a few days at least, so you two would have time to say goodbye."

"I know. That was my plan. He didn't even let me try to explain it. But I don't think that will make it any easier for him anyway. I know he doesn't want me to leave at all. I just . . . I wish I knew what else I could do. All I ever wanted was to keep my little brother safe."

"I know," Starry said as she stood up. "But let's take this one step at a time: I've got the capacitor, so let's go get the reactor back online first so there'll be a stable for Sweets to stay in. We can deal with everything else after that."

I looked up at her, her outline barely visible in the darkness; tiny points of light twinkled in the void above her, and glinted off the silver bars on her collar.

I nodded slowly. "You're right. Let's start there."

***

Starry had found a pristine spark capacitor. We had no trouble installing it, and when we closed everything up and got the reactor through its startup procedure, it hummed as good as new. We turned on the main breaker, and, like magic, the whole stable lit up.

We'd done it. We'd saved the stable.

We walked back to the atrium; I wanted Starry to see it with the lights on. She was congratulating me. I was smiling.

And then red lights began flashing along the walls, and a loud, wailing siren sounded over the P.A. system. It was a fire alarm. Screams and cries for help followed, and Starry and I flew up above the trees to get a better view: On the third level that ringed the atrium, smoke was billowing out of the corridor and rising up through the atrium in a thick, dark plume.

"Something's not right," I said. "With that much smoke, the fire suppression system should have kicked in already. I need to go back to maintenance; the control system there will let me activate it."

"Go," Starry told me. "I'll try to help evacuate everypony from that area."

I didn't stay to say goodbye to Starry. I knew that time was important: If the ventilation system didn't get clogged with smoke and spread it through the stable first, the metal corridors would turn the whole stable into an oven. Amid frantic yelling and the alarms sounding, I raced back down into maintenance. The yelling faded, but the sound of half the stable stampeding around echoed through the walls, as if to impress upon me just how many lives were at risk. But I only had one life on my mind—the only life that I had ever cared about. And I wouldn't let him down.

When I reached the control panel, I stopped dead in my tracks. It had been ripped apart; torn wires and smashed circuit boards laid scattered on the floor. And in the middle of where the console should have been, there was a lone black chess pawn.

My legs started scrambling before I knew what I was doing. They carried me back out toward the atrium, and as soon as I was out of the corridor, my wings spread out and carried me straight up. I didn't spare a single glance toward the fire. I had only one goal that consumed all my focus: the overstallion's office was the only other place in the stable that could control the fire suppression system.

Inside the office, I suddenly felt as though I'd never escaped the changelings in the forest. How else could I have been confronted with a scene, ripped from my darkest nightmares, and yet so frighteningly real, as I was then: The overstallion sat at the back of the room, his nose was bleeding, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. His hooves were bound in electrical cord. A large kitchen knife was against his neck, floating steadily in Sweets's magical aura. My little brother stood in the middle of the room, smiling at me.

"I did it for you, Day," he said. His voice was strained, and I saw his cheeks were wet with tears. "I did it all for you. So we could be together."

"Sweets . . . I . . ." I glanced over at the window that overlooked the entire stable; the smoke was growing thicker. "I need to turn on the—"

"Don't!" Sweets yelled as he twisted the tip of the knife against the overstallion's throat. "You have to listen first."

"Sweets, I'll always listen to you. You don't have to—"

"Why did you have to leave me, Day?" he whimpered. "Why? I had it all planned out, but you had to go and do something unexpected!"

"Sweets, what are you talking about?"

"And you did it all over again! Day, I knew you were the only one who could fix the reactor—he'd have to let you back in after it broke. And it worked! Here you are! But you want to leave me behind again. You want to leave me here with this . . . this monster! He's the reason our mother hated us—why she was killing you: He's been raping her for years, and we're his bastards."

"I never raped anypony!" the overstallion yelled.

"You're lying!" he screamed as he turned to face the overstallion. "I saw you with her! I saw what you'd do to her! Tell Day what you'd say to her—what sweet nothings you'd whisper in her ear while you raped her."

"It wasn't—"

"Tell him!"

The overstallion winced, and glanced from me to Sweets, then back again. He closed his good eye and swallowed hard. "I—I told her it was . . ."

"Say it!" Sweets reared up and slapped a hoof across the overstallion's face.

"Sweets—" I started to protest.

"Her lucky day!" the overstallion blurted out.

I blinked, incredulous; what I had heard hadn't made sense at first, and all of my thoughts came to a screeching halt as my mind scrambled to imagine how I might have misheard him. Then the overstallion repeated himself, and I was certain I'd heard him correctly that time, which freed my thoughts from the trap of trying to think of what he might have said, and allowed me to focus on what it meant. Slowly, the realization sunk in: this was the story of my conception.

"What else? What did you call her?" Sweets demanded.

His jaw trembling, the overstallion's eye focused on the knife Sweets was holding in his magic. "I called her . . . called her my sweetie pie."

"Her 'lucky day.' His 'sweetie pie.'" Sweets sneered while his magic tied a gag around the overstallion's mouth. "That's all she ever was to him. All we ever were to her: Sweet—little—nothings!" He spat the words. "You know why it was getting worse, Day? She was pregnant again. You weren't going to survive. Neither of us would."

I felt my chest tighten. "Sweets, let's . . . let's talk about this. We can make it better. Just let me—"

"Don't lie to me!" His lip quivered. "You said you'd always be here to protect me. You said we'd be together. You said . . . you said you loved me."

"I do love you!"

"Then why did you leave me?" he sobbed.

"Sweets," I said softly, taking a cautious step toward him. He flinched, pointing the knife at me, and I stopped. "Sweets, they would have exiled you instead. I couldn't let that happen to you. At least with her gone, I knew you'd be safe here."

"I would rather have died!" he shouted, the knife faltering briefly in his magic. "You left me all alone, big brother. You didn't even say goodbye to me. I waited for you. I waited for you! I was alone for so long until somepony came to find me, and then nopony would tell me where you went."

"Sweets, I'm sor—"

"Don't tell me you're sorry!" he yelled through gritted teeth. I'd never heard him snarl like that before—as if the word "sorry" caused him physical pain. I suddenly remembered when I had snapped at Chrys in exactly the same way. "You left me here with this monster! He was even worse than Mom." Sweets sniffled, wiping his eyes with a fetlock. "At least with Mom, we knew she hated us. But this monster . . . he'll tell you he loves you, and—" he choked. "And he makes you want to believe it. He . . ."

I started to take another step, but Sweets re-strengthened his grip on the knife.

Sniffling again, Sweets wiped his nose on his sleeve. "He wanted me to forget you."

"Sweets, I—"

"It was all a lie, though!" His horn shined brightly, as he turned the knife point toward the overstallion. "He never loved me. He just made me think he did. But . . . it felt the same as with you, Day." He looked at me, eyes wide, tears dripping from his cheeks. "How . . .? How can a lie feel so real, Day? Was it ever real? Did you ever really love me, big brother?"

"Of course I love you! You're my little brother. I'll always love you—I always have! Please, Sweets, just put the knife down. Let me activate the fire suppression system, and we can talk—"

"No!" he screamed. "Words don't mean anything! If you really love me, then kill him." He took a slow, shaky breath, floating the knife toward me, offering the handle. "I killed Mommy. You took the blame for it, but that's okay: you kill Daddy and everything will be alright. We'll leave together. As brothers. Like we were supposed to."

I stared at the knife, then looked over at the overstallion. His eyes pleaded with me. "Sweets, I . . . I can't."

"Why not? It's easy! You've killed before; you said so. Doesn't he deserve it? Don't you hate him? Don't you . . . love me?"

"Not like this, Sweets! I killed to protect myself, and only when I had to. This . . . this is just wrong."

His eyes going dark, Sweets levitated the knife back toward himself before I could snatch it away from him. "If you won't do it, I will. And I'll announce it to the whole stable, and they'll kick me out too, and then you'll have to take me with you!" Hesitating only long enough to look at me with tired eyes, he took a step toward the overstallion.

"Sweets, stop!" I reached back into my bag, pulled out my laser pistol, and aimed it at him, blinking the tears out of my eyes to keep a clear sight. My jaw trembled as I struggled to hold the pistol steady.

He stopped and simply stared at me at first, and then his eyes narrowed. "What? You're gonna shoot me?" he dared. "You won't kill this bastard, but you'll shoot me?" His lip quivered as he cried. "I guess my big brother really did leave me forever."

Sweets took another step, and I focused my aim on his foreleg—only a wound to make him stop; that's all I wanted to do. We could sort it all out if he'd just calm down and listen. I bit down, and the crimson beam streaked across the room, hitting him square in the shoulder. A dull glow flashed all over him, and—for a brief moment—I thought it'd worked; he'd stopped mid-stride as if frozen.

Then I blinked, and my little brother was gone, reduced to a pile of ashes on the floor.

And I just stood there, staring. My jaw trembled and dropped the pistol on the floor. Hind legs gave out, and I sat on my haunches. I wanted to throw up, but all I could do was look on blankly at what I'd done.

My eyes glanced over at the overstallion. He was watching me with wide eyes, his pupils like pinpricks. Slowly, mechanically, I stood up. In the back of my mind there was a nagging thought that I had come here to do something. My legs were shaky, but did their job and carried me over to the terminal. My forehooves tapped a few keys and reinitialized the fire suppression system; the screen confirmed the system was active and responding to the emergency.

Less shaky now, my legs carried me over to the overstallion, and slowly, mechanically, I untied his gag. He looked up at me and forced a smile. "Uh . . . heh . . . thanks, son. I'm sorry for what you had to do. That little maniac was going to—"

"That little maniac was my brother!" I screamed, and struck him in face. He toppled over and hit his head on the bare metal floor. I had barely felt anything up until that moment, but suddenly my chest was on fire. My heart pounded like an explosion inside my chest with every beat. The corners of my vision went dark, and all I could see was the monster on the floor in front of me.

I bit the collar of his barding and pulled him back up into a sitting position. "He was the

only person who ever loved me!" I rounded on my hooves and kicked out with both hind legs, catching him under the chin and in the side of his neck. The blow knocked him back against the wall, his head streaking blood along it as he slumped down to the floor.

He groaned and tried to move, but his legs were still tied. Coughing and drooling blood from his mouth, he turned his eye to look up at me as I stood over him. He might have tried to say something, but I could only hear the blood pounding in my ears as I reared up and stomped down on his head with both forehooves.

Chapter 11: Weightless

The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is loved; loved for one's own sake—let us say rather, loved in spite of one's self

Everything after the overstallion's office was a blur. I barely remember leaving the stable, only walking through corridors. Nopony stood in my way. They all knew I didn't belong. They simply let me leave.

I was flying. I didn't care where I was going—anywhere, nowhere, it didn't matter. I only had to keep moving.

I looked down and I saw the ground far below me. My whole life, I had been falling—every time I had a new bruise or broken bone, it was because "I fell." I kept on falling, and nopony ever reached out to save me. And the one person I had ever had to hold onto as I fell, my brother, had only been dragged down with me. And somehow, I was still falling. I looked down at the ground, and I decided it was time to stop falling.

It was time to hit bottom.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, tucked my wings against my sides, and pitched forward.

There was a brief moment where I felt my heart leap into my throat and my stomach twist into a knot, but all that passed as I breathed out.

It was quiet. Not silent—the sound of wind rushing past my ears was ever-present—but there was a strange, calm sense of stillness around me. I wasn't falling anymore; I was weightless. I finally felt as if I had managed to let go—to break free of everything that had been holding me back, dragging me down.

I smiled.

Opening my eyes, I looked up at the clouds. I let my whole body go limp. My legs stretched out above me, my wings alongside them. A few stray feathers, pulled out by the wind, floated lazily above me, and I watched them fly away on their own.

As I gazed up at my hooves above me and the clouds beyond them, I imagined myself walking along the clouds—that gloomy, ever-present ceiling over the wasteland. I felt young again, and I thought back to that single happiest moment in my life when I looked down from the stable's ceiling to see my little brother smiling back up at me, so innocent and pure. That was how he deserved to be remembered, not for what the stable had turned him into . . . what it had turned me into.

A strong crosswind buffeted me from the side and sent me tumbling, eliciting a sharp cry from me; a desperate, primitive plea of instinct, swallowed up by the open sky. Unfortunately, my voice wasn't the only thing to react on instinct, and my wings fanned out reflexively to bring me back under control.

I was facing the ground.

It was racing toward me. Bleak, sickly gray-brown fields of dirt and decay as far as I could see. My hooves flailed wildly, scrambling for purchase they wouldn't find. I was falling, but my wings—which stubbornly refused to pull back in against my sides, no matter how much I strained—were slowing my descent and steering me off course.

A stray, low-altitude cloud came up in my path. It was far too thin to stop me; my impact scattered the puffy nimbus into a fine mist, but it robbed me of rapidly decaying downward momentum. I coughed and sputtered, gasping to draw in a breath after having the wind knocked out of me, but I found it hard to take in air as it whipped past me. Suddenly, I became deathly afraid that the landing wouldn't kill me.

My mouth opened wide in a futile attempt at a scream. Wind rushed up my nose and throat, inducing another coughing fit as I choked on my own breath. My eyes watered, stinging my cheeks with icy, wind-chilled tears. My wings burned from the strain of holding me aloft, and it was then that I saw they had steered me toward an old, abandoned barn; a putrid shade of dull red—where it still had paint—it looked as if a stiff breeze might knock the whole thing over. I hated to think what would happen when I hit it.

Fearing it might be the last thing I ever saw, I cried out once more with a redoubled effort, twisting my body and straining my wings against the wind. I flipped over onto my back, and gazed up one last time at the sky above. The clouds were far away now. I reached a forehoof out, dreaming one last time about walking on the ceiling. My thoughts drifted to Starry, and I breathed out a whisper, "Goodb—"

My back exploded in pain as I hit the roof of the barn. It cracked and splintered under me, and I continued falling, crashing through the rafters—thick, heavy beams that only yielded to me due to centuries of decay weakening them. I came to rest on the floor of the barn with shards of rotten wood clattering around me. And, again, I couldn't breathe. I prayed silently to the Goddesses to just let me pass out, but my lungs, burning in my chest, starved for air, pulled and sucked in a gasp.

And then I heard the floor creaking under me.

"Not again," I whimpered as I felt the support fall out from under me once more.

I fell through into the barn's cellar, dirt and debris scattering everywhere as the floor fell in after me, half-burying me under a pile of rotten wood and other pieces of Old Equestria's decay.

***

"Day!"

"Day! Say something!"

No words came out, but I managed a whimpering gasp as I struggled under the crushing weight of debris on top of me. I blinked the dust from my eyes, and I saw Starry hovering over me. Her mane was matted with sweat, and she was covered in soot stains.

"Easy, Day. I found you. Just hold on while I get you out of there," she said.

After she dug me out from under the rubble, Starry reached out to me to help me up, but I kicked her hooves back. With a pained grunt, I rolled away from her and struggled to stand. Again she tried to help me, and again I pushed her away, this time with a snarled, "Don't touch me! Just leave me alone!"

"Day . . . what's wrong? What happened?"

After managing to stand up, I limped over to the wall and leaned against it for support while I clutched a hoof against my side where I could feel my broken ribs moving with each breath I took. I should have been in a lot more pain, but the numbness I'd been feeling since I left the stable had dulled more than just my emotions. "I fell. What's it look like?" I groaned.

"Day . . ." She looked at me with her eyes pleading. Pleading for me to let her get close to me. But after everything I'd been through, I knew I couldn't do that. It would only end up hurting more, and I just wanted to stop hurting, stop feeling . . . anything.

"Just leave! I don't need you! I wish I'd never met you!" I yelled at Starry, my legs shaking.

"You don't mean that," Starry said in a calm, soothing voice. A mother's voice. "Day, please, I want to help you, but you have to tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong! I'm fine!" I shouted, cowering back against the wall as she took a cautious step toward me. "I'm fine! I'm fine! I'm . . . fine," I choked back a sob.

"You're covered in blood, Day! You just took a dive through a barn!"

"So what if I did? It's not like I accomplished anything. Everything—" I choked again. "Everything I do turns out wrong. Why should this be any different?"

"Day . . . talk to me." Starry took another careful step in my direction, and I pressed myself harder against the wall, as if I could force myself through it to escape her. It only made the pain in my back flare up, though. But all that felt distant, as if it were only an imagined pain. It was completely eclipsed by the churning torment in my heart—an anxious, screaming fear that gripped my stomach and twisted it in knots and squeezed my chest from the inside, trying to suffocate me. It was as though some horrible monster were inside me, trying to claw its way out.

"Everything!" I trembled. "I should have—should have died when I first left the stable. Exile meant death." I looked up at Starry, my lips quivering. I could feel the monster clawing its way up the inside of my neck. "I went to Security and confessed, knowing that I'd die for it. But I was okay with it. B—because I knew the last thing I'd ever done had been to prote—" I winced, choking as I struggled to keep that monster inside. "Protect my little brother."

Starry stood there, just out of reach. She didn't say anything, only watching me with wide, sad eyes. Why should she be sad? I thought. What reason did she have to feel sad? What right did she have? She hadn't done the things I'd done. She hadn't lost everything she ever cared about.

"But then I kept living. And I had to live with what I'd done, what I'd lost . . ."

"Day, I don't blame you for killing your mother. From what you told me, it sounds like you were justified. I know that doesn't make it any easier, but—"

"I wasn't the one who killed her." I watched Starry's face as it went from a look of confusion to one of incredulity as she realized what I meant. The monster thrashing inside my chest quieted for a moment, and I sat down, lowering my head with a sigh. "Sweets killed her. I cleaned him up, got him back to sleep, and I took the blame for it. I had to. It was the only way to protect him. And the only reason I was able to face what I thought would be certain death was the knowledge that I would die protecting him."

"You're a good pony, Day." Starry reached toward me.

I clenched my jaw, feeling that monster tearing at my insides again. "And now I killed him!" I snarled through gritted teeth, as though that were all I could do to keep the monster from bursting free through my mouth. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks as I looked into Starry's wide-eyed stare. "I killed my little brother. I didn't mean to. I just wanted to stop him—stop him from killing the overstallion." I winced. "That . . . that monster . . . he was our father. Our father! It was his fault! He raped our mother! He was the reason she hated us! We were nothing but constant reminders to her, reminders of him, of the sweet nothings"—I spat the words—"he'd whisper to her. She didn't want us. She never wanted us. Nobody did. All we ever had was each other. And I killed Sweets just to protect that monster."

I was shaking all over. The monster inside me was clawing its way out and I couldn't hold it back any longer. My chest heaved with deep, sobbing breaths and I cried out in the worst pain of my life. I hurt so much that I couldn't even feel it when Starry rushed up to me and threw her forelegs around me. I wrenched my eyes shut and buried my face in her neck, muffling my desperate, agonized wails into her. "I killed him! And for what? So I could just stomp our monster of a father to death anyway?"

Starry didn't say anything. She didn't say she was sorry, or tell me it was okay, that it wasn't my fault, or that I didn't do anything wrong. She just held me. And I held her. She was warm and soft and I just wanted to stay with her as she slowly rocked me in her embrace, quietly hushing me as I cried.

The monster that I'd been struggling to contain had burst free through my face in a torrent of tears and anguished sobs. And when it was finally gone, when I couldn't cry any more, I clung to Starry as tightly as I could manage, despite the pain in my ribs and along my back and across my shoulders.

"Please don't leave me," I whimpered.

Nothing Starry could have said would have meant anything to me. I knew from all the times I'd told Sweets that I'd always be there, that I'd always protect him—I knew that "always" isn't something you can promise. Doing so will only set an expectation that you'll never be able to live up to. To say that she'd never leave me would have only been empty words—sweet nothings whispered in my ear. But Starry didn't say anything. Instead, she just held me. And that was enough.

***

I was in no mood or shape to fly, so Starry and I walked back to Mum's Diner. It was a long walk, made longer by my injured pace, but that was okay. For once, Starry and I got to travel together without anything getting in the way; no raiders, no caravans, no dark forests, and no stables. It was only she and I.

I told her everything. I told her what really happened that morning when mom died, and how much I felt as though I had failed my little brother, that he felt there was no other choice but . . .

And Starry just listened. She listened while I told her about waking up alone and looking for my brother, as in a dream. She listened while I talked about finding him on top of our mother in a bloody mess—the dream turned nightmare. She listened to me go over what happened in the overstallion's office, and how I killed my brother and my father.

All the while, Starry never said anything. Maybe she understood that there was nothing to say that would have meant anything to me, or maybe she just didn't have anything to say. She walked at my side, put her wing around me, and nuzzled at the back of my head. And no longer did I recoil from her touch. She was warm, and I leaned against her side for support while we walked.

We had to stop a few times when I broke down crying. Starry was patient, and she held me, wrapped me tightly in her wings, and rocked me gently in her warm embrace while I cried and shivered. I begged her not to leave me, repeating my lonely plea several times, as if the words themselves were other limbs I had to cling to her with. Making those pleas was more important to me than hearing a reply. And though she never did say anything, the way she held me made me feel safe with her. Rather than tell me she wouldn't leave, she simply stayed with me and kept me close to her.

I wasn't okay, not by a long shot. And maybe I never will be after all I've been through, but Starry managed to give me something that I hadn't known I was missing. She made me feel as if I mattered to someone. And while that didn't make everything all better, it somehow made it bearable. No longer was I trying to deny my pain. I had finally hit rock bottom . . . somewhat literally. And though I still feel like it would be tempting fate to believe things couldn't get any worse, I didn't have to suffer alone in silence anymore.

***

The sun had set by the time we reached the diner. But the moon was in full and even the cloudy skies couldn't hold back Luna's brilliant glow. The bright night would watch over the end of the old day and the coming of the new.

Lights were on inside Mum's Diner, and as we approached, we could hear loud noise from within: signing, laughing, sounds of celebration. It hardly seemed like a place where I belonged. I felt absolutely wretched. I was sure my eyes were puffy and bloodshot, my face was wet, and I had streaks of snot along my forelegs where I had wiped my nose. Not to mention my myriad aches and bruises, but those were hardly anything new.

Starry turned to me, put her hoof on my shoulder, and smiled gently. The silver bars on her collar sparkled with reflected moonlight; two bright, shining stars that had always been there, guiding me through the darkness. I didn't have it in me to smile back at her, but I knew I didn't have to wear a mask for her anymore. She stroked my mane a couple times then leaned in to kiss my forehead. "Let's go home," she said softly, nodding toward the diner.

The corners of my lips pulled back ever so slightly, and I nodded. "Home."

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