By the time he got up from bed, the heat and humidity in the small, tin room had made breathing far less comfortable for Raze. He let his body fall into his morning routine of zebra stretching techniques and forehoof-stand pushups and was rewarded by several crunching sounds from his spine. “Serenity,” he breathed. “Peace.” He inhaled the rank odor steaming off from all his parts and licked his salty lips, a smile spreading across his bright, orange face. This was a particularly nasty job, but he was certainly enjoying the perks.

He turned his head to a groan emanating from the covers on the bed. “Mmmmmm....” Raze knew that he had already over-stayed his welcome and began putting on his disguise for the day: a disheveled, old, gray, dash-addicted, stallion suit. The whole thing wouldn't take but a moment to put on, but unfortunately for Raze...

“Mmmmm?” the sea green mare rolled to her other side to get a better look at Raze, disturbing the sheets even more. “Where do you think you're going, brandy buns?”

Raze took the jeering over his Dashite mark with the tact and polish one would expect from any professional spy, “Hey, fuck you.”

She gave a little giggle at his ridiculous Fillydelphia accent and stretched languidly on the bed, her strong muscles moving under her smooth coat like soothing waves one would find in the middle of the ocean. The Ranjuhss sure do make 'em ruyt, he thought. His continuous stare of her lithe body belied his calloused words. “Pshhh, shut up, you like it,” she teased.

“Yeah, you keep sayin' 'nat.” He did like it, but the sun was already up and Raze had a meeting to keep so he continued with his disguise. “Hey, tanks for last nuyt, but Oi got somewhere Oi gotta be. You take care 'o yourself, ruyt?”

She snickered at his accent, “Heh, right.”

He gave her one last, derisive look and took his leave, carefully closing the door behind him. He moved unnoticed down the rickety stairs of the inn to the empty bar, and maneuvered silently past its many empty and broken bottles and sleeping patrons. It had definitely been an easy thing, slipping up to one of the rooms the previous night with all of the non-stop partying, which apparently did have a stopping point, but now he had the challenge of making it out of the back door.

A cream-colored unicorn stallion slowly walked out of the stock room rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with a hoof. After a few blinks he noticed the unkempt, gray drug fiend standing in his bar. There was a pause while both ponies waited for their brains to start working again. Creamy pony was first, “ The Hell? ... Get your Dash-addicted ass outta my bar!” He grabbed a broom with his magic and began to jab Raze in the ribs with its handle.

Raze, ever the professional, knew exactly how to handle the situation. “Naw, cuz I don't even want yo' snake!” he started as he began to punch imaginary parasprites with his hooves. “You ain't gonna eat ol' Fish Row! Flim won the election and ain't no amount 'uh canny c'n mehke Luna say otherwise!” That got the bar owner's confused attention, but the cream-colored pony really started questioning his control of the situation when Raze started punching his own face and yelling, “Celestia's burnin' snot holes, help me! Rape! Rape! Lil' Creamy's gon' beat up ol' Fish Row with his rapin' pole! Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!” Raze hunkered down on the floor and held his forehooves over his head to block any more jabs from the creamy pony's dreaded broomstick.

The bewildered looks from the newly awoken patrons, hungover from the night before, forced the bar owner to show a bit of mercy. “Hey, I'm sorry about that old timer, but you really have to leave,” he said with a slightly worried and defeated look on his face.

Raze slowly got back up and gave a nice hacking cough and wheeze. “That's alight, creamy, that's alright,” he explained. “Hey...you got any free caps, son?”

“Get the HELL outta my bar!” creamy said as he chased Raze out of the back door and into the alleyway. Raze allowed himself the laugh of a drug-crazed maniac as he shambled down the alley towards the street, onlookers giving him a brief glance before focusing even more on continuing in their respective directions. Raze smiled. Ol' Fish Row was always a favorite role of his; even more so than Colonel Cream Puff the ghoul soldier or Red Light Sparkle, whom Raze was particularly proud of, a tranvestite prostitute. But Ol' Fish Row not only allowed Raze to act completely out of his mind, he also could stumble away from nearly any extreme situation by being unintelligible and unapproachable, which made him the prime get-away persona for jobs like information retrieval and assassination.

He meandered slowly down the city street, asking for spare caps and talking to invisible figures about stews until the sound of an explosion shot out from the room in which he had been staying, sending anypony walking or standing near the building into a staring shock. As the citizenry watched smoke billow out one of the upper rooms, Raze used the distraction to scream more bizarre word combinations as he slipped into a nearby alley.

He staggered down the alley a distance and made a left turn at the edge of the ruined concrete building, heading into a dead end. He quickly peeled off the Ol' Fish Row disguise and after throwing it in his skin-tight saddle bags, leaped effortlessly over the massive brick wall at the end of the alley. His wings enjoyed the taste of freedom for only a moment as he dove into a garbage bin on the other side of the wall, closing the lid after himself. For a brief moment there was silence in the refuse-strewn alleyway, until Raze emerged in a beautiful black, suit jacket with navy-blue pinstripes, and a matching tie hugging a crisp, white shirt. Nopony checks da dum'sters anymore, he smirked as he reached into his inside coat pocket and deftly produced a pair of jet-black, rectangular sunglasses which he then threw into the air and looking up, let land perfectly onto his face. He let out a sigh of sweet, shady relief and began winding his way through the labyrinthine ruins of the Withershire district.

The long walk home after a job was always a time for reflection for Raze. His latest job. His betrayal. Grandma. Aw, what's she gonna 'ink about dis last job, he asked himself. For his entire surface life she had become his moral compass and mentor. He could confide anything to her. No matter how distasteful the job he took, she had a story with an equal or greater future regret. He was paid to publicly humiliate somepony for cheating on his wife? She had to ruin a pony's life to cover up a government blunder. He had to spend a night with a mare in order to dig up some dirt on her husband? She had to do that several times with mares and stallions and was sometimes forced to put their respective spouses in the dirt. So, what made this time so different?

It was a simple assassination, nothing more. Sneak into her room, plant a device or poison of some kind and leave. But, Raze spent the night with her. And, not just for the cardio workout, either; he opened up and let her see him as he truly was. It was liberating to be himself around somepony other than Grandma. More freeing still to exhibit his deepest thoughts and emotions to somepony he knew wouldn't live to see the next day. He and Grandma had done worse, so why did this one feel so different? Was it some kind of emotional affair to be himself around another pony, a mare at that? Was it some kind of sadistic satisfaction he got when he knew she wouldn't live to do anything with the information he imparted? Or, was he simply just cracking and this vulnerability was the first sign of weakness. Raze tried to put this out of his mind when he got within viewing distance of the yawning chasm of the Red Line metro tunnel. Almost home.

His hooves clacked gently as he walked along the steel rails. When he reached the opening to the subway station he was welcomed with a breeze of cool air carrying the unmistakable stench of death and decay. Home was exceptionally dark, but he was used to it, and at least Grandma left a barrel fire light out for him. It's dim, orange light lent an air of a night out in the wastes, under the stars, like in those old, western movie posters he had seen around Applewood. He flew up to the tiled platform and looked at the new group of those pesky, mutated insects: radroaches, come to lay claim to his food, no doubt. The odor may have chased away any and all living ponies out of the metro tunnels, but these bugs were a different story entirely. Did Grandma just exude radroach pheromones? Raze shivered at the thought as he smashed in the heads of the skittering interlopers.

Finishing off the last one with a sickening crunch underneath his hoof, he trotted over to the derelict metro car and wiped his hooves off on the towel hanging near its door. Well, he thought. Here Oi go.

He pulled the makeshift lever attached to the frame of the train car making an obnoxious squeaking sound which rang through the cavernous station as the door simultaneously opened. He stepped through the door into the dimly lit subway car. Raze normally welcomed the atrocious smell in the car, but this time it fueled his trepidation. No matter how well he would try to hide his feelings and actions of the past twenty-four hours, Grandma would know. Grandma always knew.

“Raze?” he heard Grandma's broken, smoky voice echoing from the adjoining car. “Raze, so nice of you to come home; I was worried sick about you!” Her Bucklyn accent might have been chewed up due to her ghoulification, but she was still able to make it comfortably sing-songy. She walked up to the adjoining car door. “Naw, fuck awf, I knew you were alright, ya big wuss!” She must have caught the look in Raze's eye right before he attempted a smirking laugh at her ridiculous nature, because she immediately changed the atmosphere. She patted an oily pillow on the ground with her hoof and started to console him, “Okay, baby, siddown, let Gran'ma fix you sumthin' ta eat and you can tell me what happened. I wanna hear everything you have ta say. Who was she? Did she break your heart? Does Gran'ma need bust out and cut a pony?”

That last question made him laugh in spite of his feelings as he walked over to sit on the pillow. They shared a smile, Grandma's toothy grin peeking out of the gaping hole in her right cheek. It's times like these which reminded him how much he loved this ancient mare; why he loved her. And why the thought of the conversation he was about to have with her was eating him from the inside out. He was so afraid that if he let out his thoughts, they would consume her, too. He looked up at her with a sense of adoration and a disappointment in himself. “No, you don't need tuh cut uh Pony, Gra'ma,” he explained.

Grandma had nabbed a freeze-dried, carrot and celery salad from their homespun pantry, opened the corner to the bowl and began to pour water into it from a pretty, pink carafe, festooned with hearts. She replaced the lid to the bowl and started shaking it. “It's yah favorite,” she beamed. “Cool ranch! I don't know who came up with these names, but these don't taste like any kind of ranch I've been to. Ah-haaa-haaa-haaaaa! Now eat'chah lunch befo-ah it gets warm.” She walked over to lie down on a particularly oily pillow. “And tell us the story! C'mon!”

Raze took his lunch, opened the top, and looked at the slightly yellowish and brown contents as if to ask it for help in how to account for the last day. The so-called carrots and celery just sat in the bowl, silent. Tanks for da help, guys, he thought as he began to eat. He closed his eyes and sighed as the gentle taste of “cool ranch” relaxed his tongue. “Well, gram'ma,” he started. “It's luyk dis...”

He recounted the past twenty-four hours in detail. From spotting the AWOL paladin at the bar and throwing back drinks with her, to following her up to one of the free rooms and planting the explosive in her saddle bag. “It was all goin' perfect until she didn't pass out,” he said, putting a hoof to his head. “I didn't know whut else ta do, so, yuh know, we fucked.”

Grandma attempted a “pshh” sound as she rolled her eyes. “I swe-ah, you stallions and yo'ah parts,” she said. She shook her head. “You-ah going to get into trouble if ya keep thinking with that thing! But, go on dea-ah.”

Raze took another bite of his “salad” and continued, “Lemme fuckin' finish, eh?! So...der we were, ruyt? Aftehwards?” He stared at the ground, legs outstretched, looking for the inspiration to come to the crux of his issue. After a few, silent chin movements, he was able to finish. “An' Oi start spillin' muy guts ta dis mare.” He looked straight into the face of the ghoul, seeking approval and finding nothing but a nod. “Oi told 'er about getting' kicked out ' da Enclave 'cause uh Willow Wind; about whut it's luyk bein' a pegasus in'nis world; whut muy fuckin' future plans were, gram'ma Oi told 'er everyfing!” He paused for another moment to swallow the lump that had slowly crept into his throat and slowly breathed a few times. “Gram'ma I'm sorry....Da fuck is wrong wit' me?”

The old ghoul smiled as best she could and let out a dry rattle in place of a sigh. “Let Grandma tell you a story,” she said, getting up and heading to her bunk in the other train car. She opened up her old trunk which contained her entire life before before the bombs fell. After a few moments of rummaging and talking to herself she found what she was looking for, “Aha!” Walking back to the car in which Raze was sitting, Grandma asked him gently, “What do you see in this picture?” She tenderly placed the photo in front of him.

He glanced at the aged, black and white photo and looked back up at Grandma. “It's a filly,” he said. She looked at him as if he got an answer wrong on a test. “Uhhh...cute...liddle filly?” She just stood there, breathing. “Oi got nut'n.”

With great reverence, she picked up the photo with her teeth and lay down on her pillow again, placing the picture on the small, coffee table in front of her. “Did I ever tell you of the story of Bayrun?” she asked.

“Dat pony who you ruined 'is luyfe? Yeah. Some muckety-muck, government official dat 'e knew was havin' an affair wit' some skanky intern, but 'e was too impor'nt for Bay tuh do anyfing about it, so you had tuh ruin 'is reputation. Dat about ruyt?”

“Heheh,” she laughed without a hint of a smile. “Let me clarify some things for ya. First awff, yeah, the 'muckety-muck' was Rapidfi-ya, an ex-Wonderbolt, one-time Shadowbolt and wounded war hero. He was the face of the Forlorn Fighter project to help impaired veterans get back on the-ah hooves. His 'skanky intern' was...um...well, I forget. Some whorish unicorn, anyway. The point is, Bayrun, which is one of the stupidest names evah by the way, who in the-ah right mind would name the-ah foal Bayrun? I bet you he got picked on in school.”

Raze began to wane as the barrage of words continued unabated. Grandma noticed the exhausted look on his face and continued the important part of the story in earnest. “ANYWAY, he found those two 'in flagrante delicto', if you catch my drift, and a massive blow to national morale was exactly what Princess Luna didn't need at that time, what with the dwindling resources and all. So my team and I were dispatched to clean up his mess.” Grandma rolled over on to her back and gesticulated even more expressively with her hooves. “The may'ah was easy to buy awff; probably because I scared the crap outta her when I told her the alternative. Ha! That was always fun when it worked. Poo-ah bad-luck Bayrun, that schmoe, had already gone to the pay-puhs so we had to discredit him. We hung every bit of dirty laundry that colt had out to dry, though to be shu-ah, we had to fabricate some awful things for him to have done.”

The ghoul sat back up to once again look at the photograph, exuding a palpable sense of longing as thick as peanut butter. She traced the outline of the picture with her hoof, gave it a couple taps and continued at a hushed volume, “We didn't know his job was the only thing keeping his marriage tuh-ge-thah. We didn't know how hard we pushed the public against him.” She looked up to stare Raze right in his eyes. “This is a picture of Pearly, his little filly. Three months after ou-wah intervention, Bayrun purchased a gun, and shot his estranged wife and filly before hanging himself on an Equestrian Broadcasting System tower with his suicide note attached to his neck, describing, in detail, the happenings of the previous few months.” She leaned back, stretching. “Suffice it to say, things wound up worse for everyone involved. Rapidfi-yah was made into a spectacle of govuhment corrruption, the intern was forevah in the tabloids and an inquirey ordah'd for my team. Worst of awll, this young filly's life was cut sho-aht due to my not understanding my tah-get.”

Raze felt sad but also confused. “Dat's horrible...but Oi don' see how awll dat applies...”

“Just hold awn a second, I'm getting to the point!” She sighed. “The-ah are a lot of lessons to be learned from this story, but the one that stuck with me the most is this: I look at this picture and I don't just see my fail-yah to save this foal. I see it as my fail-yah to have one of my own. To even have a stallion to come home to and show-ah me with love. I didn't have anypony to shay-ah this stuff with and it took its toll on me, Raze.” She pointed a hoof at him. “You think you went crazy because you tawlked with a tah-get? At least you tawlked with a real pony. I stah-ted having full conversations with things in my apuahtment, trying to work through awll my problems.”

With much effort and a lot of creaking, the old pegasus stood up and walked over to the now misty-eyed Raze. She gave him the type of hug that only grandmothers can give and stroked his mane. “Grandma knows, sweetheart. Grandma always knows. Don't you feel like you-ah cheating on me by confiding in anothah pony, you he-ah? One of these days you'll meet somepony who will help you through awll you-ah trust problems, and they'll change you. You'll meet that may-uh who you'll be able to tawlk to like an equal so you won't feel so isolated in you-ah little colt cave. You won't need old Grandma anymo-ah.”

Raze gave a sniff and dried his eyes a little. “Dat'll never h-happen, gram'ma,” he said, damming up his tears with a smile. “Dat'll never happen because you mares are nuthin' but a bunch 'o bitches.”

“Aw, quit bein' a little fuck,” she quipped, smacking a bruise onto his shoulder with a strong hoof. They both shared a much needed chuckle. “Seriously though. You need to find some ponies you feel you can trust, okay? Don't be a schmuck, though. Use you-ah common sense to know who can be trusted, okay?”

“Okay.”

“How's ya salad?”

“Tastes like crap.”

“I know it does, sweetie. HEY! I'm going out dancing tonight with my oth-ah oldah friends! Whaddya think 'o that?”

“Oh, no you're not! You know how crazy da patrols get at nuyt.” The ponies of Celestia's Acre, beneath what used to be Los Pegasus, were fond of capturing ghoul ponies and their crazed, feral cousins and forcing them into a sporting arena for deathmatches. Never placing ghoul against ghoul, as the wild, zombie-like ferals would never attack any other ghoul, the deathmatches were rigged to always let the living ponies remain alive, thereby placating the populace's thirst for blood and giving the ponies who enjoyed the fights the righteous feeling of retaining their dignity and destroying the horrors of the world. But, some of these ghouls were just as alert and present as they were before the balefire radiation of the bombs changed their physical nature all those years ago. Some of these ponies were scientists, nurses, teachers, musicians. None of that mattered to the citizens of Celestia's Acre. Newer was always better to them and the dwindling numbers of the generation of yesteryear was subject to the wanton desires of the ignorant youth. It was easy for anypony to understand Raze's concern. “Remember wut happened wit' Jacks!” he said, raising his eyebrows for effect.

“Jacks was a jack-ass! That mule always made poo-ah choices. Besides, he went feral befo-ah they forced him into his first fight.” She stood up and walked into her train-car-turned-room to search for the right outfit to wear, taking the photograph with her and placing it back into her trunk. “Now, I'm going out tonight, but don't worry; we-ah taking every precaution by holding it up in the Applewood Hills. Nopony goes up there anymore, anyway. Oh yeah,” she turned around to point a hoof at him. “And I was commanding spec. ops. Teams before you-ah grandfathah took his first shit, so relax, huh?”

Raze couldn't help but chuckle. He knew there was no changing Grandma's mind when she was in one of these moods. “Well den,” he started wiping the rest of the warm moisture from around his eyes with a hoof. “Lemme at least give ya a walk up dere. Oi'm headin' up to Applewood muyself tuh get paid, an' hopefully meet up wit' Galena on da way.”

The ghoul walked out of the other car wearing a fairly spotless dress-blue skirt suit with matching blue, folded cap. “Oh! Galena? I like her! You almost nevah see griffons on this coast anymoah. She must get really lonely in those hills without a boyfriend or anything to keep her company.” Grandma gussied herself up as she looked into the small mirror hanging from one of the overhead hoof-rails. “We should bring her something. Hey, maybe I have a book or something she can read.” Raze watched her hurry back to her car and heard a lot of rustling until finally he heard her exclaim, “Aha!” She walked back into the car while carrying a thick book in her mouth which she spat over at Raze. “Awaken the Dragon Within. I love Iron Will; everybody should read his books. Ya can't go wrong!”

Grandma continued her primping while Raze kept his mind busy, dwelling on the past twenty-four hours. He had always been good at figuring out a pony's heart, mind and desires. He prided himself on being able to know somepony's deepest and darkest thoughts even if they, themselves didn't know them. Knowing what is behind those surface thoughts, the shallow end, was important in order to determine the next course of action for the mark. Trouble with Raze was that his deep, dark thoughts had just been taken over by unknown forces whose beliefs were totally at odds with its previous tenants'. This left Raze feeling like he had just lost a lifelong friend, and that was the friend had helped guide him through every event in his life. Raze might've been able to predict somepony else's next steps, but when it came to himself he was now completely alone to make entirely new decisions.

Raze got up to his hooves. He felt dizzy and weightless, as if dropping from the sky, blindfolded. He steadied himself and walked over to one of the cabinets which adorned the end of the car. He out took his bottle of Filthy Rich cognac and his snifter. He poured himself a sip and savored the complex flavors hidden in its deep, amber hue and breathed a smile onto his face as the confusing warm/cool sensation calmed the the waters of his mind. The walk up to Applewood would do him well. Perhaps he could begin to discover what damage his mind had done to itself.

The strange couple finished preparing for their long walk, and after locking up their home (which included closing the door and setting a trap) they started to walk northwest down the quietly howling tunnel towards Applewood, a small lantern, their only light. To break the droning silence, Grandma told him stories of her past in wartime Applewood and the city that hovered in the air just south of it, Los Pegasus and the two other cities which nearly shared its name (how anypony thought naming three close-by cities Los Pegasus, Las Pegasus and Las Pegas was a good idea was far beyond Raze's and Grandma's comprehension). She told him about all the different weirdos who made their home in the area, about the best places to get a slice of pizza at four in the morning, and about that one time she met Hairerion Trot, the actress who played Daring Do in all of the Daring Do movies.

“Huh!” Raze exclaimed. “'Dja say anyfing to 'er?”

“Yeah,” Grandma explained. “I said, 'Hey, aren't you Hairerion Trot who played Daring Do in awll those movies?'”

“What'd she say?”

“Ha! She just walks past me and she says, 'Fuck awff!'”

Their laughs echoed through the massive veins of tunnels making up the city's underbelly, shattering the near silence and warming their spirits even as the reverberations became more chill and haunting. A chittering sound took over when their echos died down. The Applewood bloodwings were deadly, but didn't tend to stir during the daylight hours, not that it mattered to two, highly-trained pegasi spies, though it did help keep the majority of ponies away from their residence in the metro station and the north part of the city. The pegasus ghoul shook off her grin and looked tenderly into Raze's handsome, young face. “You'll find you-ah true friends someday, Raze,” she said as she walked next to him. “You'll be able to tell them you-ah secrets and they'll help you through you-ah pains.”

Raze argued with himself as to if her sentiment were true as the two made their way up a non-operational escalator to the Twilight Sparkle Boulevard station. The station had seen better days. Bottles and and overturned trash bins littered the floor of the raised walkway, there was large, indecipherable graffiti on nearly every surface and the walls leaked their detritus upon the floor. They were the only souls in the station. “Oi don't see how dat's possible, gram'ma,” he said, staring at a ruined Sparkle~Cola machine he was passing by. “Not anymore, anyways.”

“It is, Raze, it is.” They reached the top of the steps of a second, broken escalator and looked out onto the deserted street. The pavement was cracked. Then again, it had been cracked since before the war. The stores, twenty-four hour pizza shops and music venues had been derelict for years, and all around there was a suffocating silence which made Raze's ears ring. The perfect area for dangerous, clandestine meetings of distorted minds and fading souls. They walked in near silence for a few hundred yards, until Raze heard a little sound as if somepony were rummaging through an old attic.

Scavengers.

This far north in the city, there were only a few types of ponies crazy enough or well-equipped enough to brave the possibilities of coming face-to-face with bloodwings or feral ghouls, and Raze had no desire to meet with any of them. The two walked more cautiously down the street, keeping to the late afternoon shadows in between the buildings. As they approached the building which was emanating the sounds, Raze heard a familiar voice, talking to itself.

“Seen it. Seen it. Ugh, wish I hadn't seen it. Seen it. Wrote fan-fiction about it. Saw it and all of its sequels....” The silly, high-pitched voice was punctuated by the sound of small pieces of metal being clicked together and the sound was accelerating. “Oh my GAWD! Isn't there anything in here worth...” The speech was cut short by a massive back-breath as Raze opened the door to the memorabilia shop.

“Yo,” Raze called out, nonchalantly leaning against the door frame. “How's it goin' 'Lena?”

The young griffon who was sitting, sifting through a wooden box full of old holotapes, quickly turned around with one of the small reels in her claws. “Ohmigosh, Raze! Have. You. Seen this movie?” Raze breathed in to reply, but Galena just went right on talking. “Escape from Canterlot? Burnt Brussels plays a bad-ass in a post-apocalyptic ... yeah I guess you wouldn't have seen it, all things considered,” she said, looking around at the ruined remains of a metropolis which surrounded them. “Pshh, you like all those hipster movies like Rebel Without Claws or those weird, eleven minute, foreign art pieces, blerg!”

Raze ignored what she was saying. “What'cha doin' 'Lena?”

“Oh, oh, oh! I'm looking through this box of...wait you gotta know...so, I thought this place had been completely picked clean, before and, wait, the first part of the story...SO, I was flying around this morning and I decided to...”

“Galena! Come on!”

“Dude!” she yelled, furrowing her brow. “That's what I'm s-...you know what? I took this box of holotapes outta that wall safe no one else could get into. There. You ruined my story. Hope you're happy with a boring story...uh...uh...Chaise!” With that Galena turned back to her wooden box of treasures, handling them not quite as nicely as before.

Grandma finally shoved the pegasus out of the way, making room for herself in the little shop. “Galena!” she beamed as brightly she could.

“Grandma!” Galena yelled with a poorly constructed smile of surprise that was unfortunately rife with disappointment. She steadied her stomach as best she could for the hug that was racing for her. Raze watched and chuckled to himself as he watched her face go from feigned delight to a worried chipmunk expression as she tried, desperately to keep her lunch down (which was probably candy as Raze thought about it, and this fact made him laugh all the more). The griffon always had a difficult time being around Grandma, or any ghoul for that matter, on account of her unusually sensitive sense of smell.“It's so good to -urp- see you!”

Grandma ignored her pleas for fresh air and stayed close to the griffon. “So, what's this? A box of old movies? Got anything good?”

Galena brightened up at the prospect of being able to talk movies, forgot completely about the putrid smell and started taking the holotapes out of the box, one at a time. “Ohmigosh! Escape from Canterlot, we got Omega Pony, A Colt and his Dog...I think I see a pattern emerg-,” she stopped short as her mouth flung open and seemed to breath in all of the air from the room. There, in the box, undisturbed for almost two centuries, was the entire collection of Daring Do movies on holotape. She made several failed attempts at speaking before letting out a worried, little, “Whaaaaat?” She looked up at Grandma with the face of a child who had just received the best birthday gift, ever as she began to cry and found it difficult to keep in more than a gulp of air for each syllable as she tried to talk, “Gran'ma … I … sniff … ne-ver seen The Trials of Un-ni-ty!”

Grandma patted her head with a gentle hoof. “It's a good one, sweetie,” she said, ruffling Galena's head feathers and looking over at Raze. “Definitely one you should watch with friends; you'll have to have us ov-ah.” She hunkered down to look the griffon in the eyes. “Hey! Did I tell you about the time I met Hairerion Trot?”

Galena perked up and wiped the tears and snot off of her beak. “What?! No! Ohmigosh, that's so cool! Tell me what happened! C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!” Her youthful vigor made the old ghoul smile.

Raze showed his impatience taking a glance outside and stretching. “Yo! Yiz guys gonna be okay if Oi leave?” he asked.

“We'll be fine, sweetie,” Grandma said, giving Galena's shoulder a rub. “You can go awf to you-ah meeting.”

“'Lena, you take care of Gram'ma, ruyt? Make sure she gets ta where she needs ta go?”

The griffon sat straight up as regal as she could be and gave Raze a grim salute even as she pulled out a massive, home-made weapon from her side holster. “Don't worry, sarge,” she grumbled as she clicked a button and the gun-like weapon made a rising, electronic whine. “I got this.”

The orange pegasus chortled through a smirk and put on his sunglasses before backing out of the shop onto the empty street. He heard them wish him a good day and start chatting as he walked away from the building. He was alone with his troubling thoughts once again.

He bemoaned his past. The story played out in his mind like a bad soap opera. Success. Rejection. A loss. A fall. The thirst for vengeance which drove him until recently. His hatred had masked his hurt for so long he had almost forgotten what had hurt him in the first place. Rejection. Willow Wind. Unfortunately, this long-standing hatred had now tossed in another problem for Raze to juggle. He felt like he knew everypony, but he knew nopony knew him. This loneliness gave him a feeling of being tantalized by the fruit of friendship and acceptance he had witnessed in the relationships of others. Somepony with whom to share and talk? Raze didn't have that. Grandma was close, but they both kept secrets from each-other; that was modus operandi for their careers.

Maybe it was time to look for a new line of work.

Raze turned right down a dark alley, a large, brick building on his left blocking the light of the setting sun and casting a deep shadow over the alleyway and what used to be a twenty-four-hour pizza place on his right. He saw a lumbering movement in the darkness.

“Didja hear the one about Fillydelphia?” asked an impossibly gruff and blown-out voice from the shadows. Raze heard the click of a revolver preparing to fire.

“I heard it exploded,” he said in a perfect, Trottingham accent, to the shadow. “Twice.”

This story is based on Kkat’s strange and wonderful, Fallout: Equestria. If you haven’t already, please do so. Here’s the link: Equestria Daily

If you’d like to read more Fallout Equestria Side Stories, take a look at: Fallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and the Fallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan

Thank you also to Arcane Scroll for the excellent site: Fallout: Equestria Resource. There is a chat function on that site, come say “hello.”