Fallout Equestria: The Tartarus Contingency

CH 6 - “The Quiet Ones”

–

“The forgotten are light sleepers.”

–

Treating Quartz with respect that morning was hard work.  Not having slept the entire time had only compounded the matter.  I was eager to go, as one wouldn't expect.  I had climbed the ladder to the upper hatch a dozen times to peek outside, freeze my face, and see when light would come.  It arrived later than I thought, but being nervous made time stretch into durations that were mind numbing.

I'd gotten her up with a love tap and a stare.  She had risen to her hoofs with her gun, grumbling when she realized she wouldn't need to pull the trigger again.  I made sure her angry eyes were watching when I took to rousing Miser with nothing more than a couple stern words.

I had to let them take the lead once we'd squeezed ourselves through the hatch.  Well, one of them anyway.  Quartz wasn't keen on me being behind both of them.  I hadn't known the path they had taken to get there, and wasn't about to take another dive into the abyss below.  They'd gotten to the bunker once; getting out was on them, even after their tracks from the previous day had been polished away.

Back outside in the cold and comfortable familiar of silver snow, we took to the tracks in the spire forest, and began making our way south again along the Long Line.  It had already become routine, but tricks of the old magic in the metal had started to present some strange and welcome aberrations.

Strange shimmers had come in clouds every half hour or so.  They lifted from the rails and made the path ahead seem to warp when looked through.  The zones were breathtakingly hot, surrounded by pools of brown, steaming water, and the metal parts of the tracks seemed to have an orange gleam.  We avoided those hotspots once we got used to them being more than a childish curiosity.  Wet hooves chilled instantly once removed, and the horseshoes we had cooling and warming too quickly could get some painful warps and bends remedied only with a crowbar and something to bite down on.  We had neither.

The more we trotted, the better I felt.  Without sleep, thoughts wander enough to ignore a lot of things.  Like what I had left behind in the mines.  I never would be completely clean of the place, that I knew- distancing from it was an invaluable boon.

We investigated a metal shack before stopping.  Inside had been a hot barrel.  More inquiry revealed the barrel itself was clean of overcharging, and there weren't any of the telling orange dots that some luckier bastards had used to safeguard their travel points.  We rested a while, and got to hating each other just a little more.

I had shied away from the fragrant box offered to me at first.  Cram.  My stomach had already become a twisted bundle of dry cloth by midday, and I hadn't wanted it knotted by a blow of hay so drowned in old world chemicals that it had survived the end.

Quartz hadn't taken well to the rejection of her kindness.  Come to think of it, I don't believe I ever saw her accept that notion from anypony.  “You know the rule.” She said.  “Can't sleep, eat.  Can't eat, sleep.  You haven't done either since yesterday.”

“Don't mind me.” I grumbled.  “I'm not hungry.” I said before waving her away.  I hadn't been lying.  Even trying to think about food with that thing in the mine mess hall had caused my throat to gingerly vibrate.

Miser spoke up with his usual lack of tact, with one cheek full of chewy, vinegar drowned daisy broth.  He drooled a little as he talked.  “We aren't in a bad way right now.  You could catch a few hours of closed lids.”  His cheek swilled the mass.

I turned back to the hot barrel, and let out a sour grunt.  Getting that rest wasn't up to the parts of me that were thinking.  “I could try.  I'm not sure I'd get anything out of it though.”

They both withdrew.  Quartz stared dryly at her container, watching the packed hay strings slosh about in amber gelatin.  Miser got his wide nose stuck in his can for a few seconds, watching me more than what he was doing.  He sipped out the last of the soup he'd been sucking down.

“Never thought a guy like you would get so messed up over getting shot.” Quartz said, with a nervous laugh.

My forehooves lifted from the barrel, and the talisman's tingle drained away.  It left me frigid, and every part of my seated posture sunk.  Except for my eyes.  Those rested on her, past quickly fogging goggles.  The two of them kept still, wary of the nutjob staring at her.

“Bad taste?” she asked.

I nickered, and somehow did it with a smile.  I could appreciate humor like that.  It was honest like my camera.  “No worse than what you're pretending to eat.” I replied.  I put my hooves back to the barrel.  There was plenty of reason to start something with her comment.  None of it would have gotten us anywhere.

So, I explained rather than instigated.  “Had a friend die the same way I almost did last night.  Only difference is the shot wasn't an accident.  Same gun, same caliber.”  I grunted.  “Small world, huh?”

Quartz closed her eyes in a sort of apology, then put her tin to the barrel.  It was the pickers way of cooking with a talisman.  A convenient way to avoid conversation, too.  It was too easy to overheat small things.

“Speaking of bad taste, I'm using the gun that killed her.”

Quartz kept herself shut up by stuffing her face, despite having only spent a few seconds heating her food.

“Took good care of it.  Can't look a gift horse in the mouth, right? Especially if you're looking at that mouth from over a gun barrel.”

She shook her head and sighed.

We huddled together for a while, gathering enough heat to continue.  They asked where we were going, and I replied with the most obvious answer:  “No idea.” and a shrug.  “The Map has it circled, says it's called W T Reservation.  Had a big cross mark on it, like what the old maps of Resilience had for hospitals.”

“A med haven huh?  Sounds like providence.”

“I don't believe in luck like that.  Not for me.”

“Maybe that's why you don't have it.”

Oh, she did have a sense of humor I could get used to.

[***]

Billboards.  There was one on either side of the rails- one faced away from us, the other stared at us from behind a pair of sapphire eyes that had then still had some sparkle upon the wind torn image.  Cobalt coat and regal, starry mane had been waving about behind the tall, long-horned mare.  The signs were sprouting from...  Well, the strangest thing I'd seen in a long, long time.  Dirt.

That was the first time in my life I'd ever seen thin snow outside the walls.

When the three of us stopped to look, curious and unbelieving, we found our original giddiness to be over something too good to be true.  The base of the billboard was surrounded by a broken ring of golden, old world coins.  Within them, there were fresh etches.  They were jagged and straight, but they seemed familiar.  When we realized what the tiny, indecipherable words were from, confusion took us.  They were warming talisman's, homemade, and plentiful.

We were surrounded by the bleak white, and the two billboards.  Below both, a “hot ring” had been made, and both seemed to have been tended.  There were broken bits of ladders replaced with makeshift rungs.  Pipes, rebar, and a few bones had been tied or nailed in place.  When I looked up to see the other billboard, it was no different from the first.  The blue mare, her mane out of focus, her stature leaving her proud against the backdrop of night.  The words had been painted over with all sorts of colors, which had since darkened with age, and in a strange cobbling of language in which few were recognizable as letters.

Around us?  Nothing more.  Just the tracks, the wind, and the snow.

I narrowed my eyes.  “Something's wrong.” I said.

Quartz quieted her groan.  Miser looked up toward the billboard, then upturned a hoof and the corner of a lip.

“Somepony kept these things decent.”  I said.  “Only reason to maintain a picture is if you want to keep it.”  I tapped my saddlebags, jostling my scrapbook within.

I looked down while they returned to photograph.  There were tiny divots in the snow – not more than a talisman large, shallow, and split up the center.  They were cloven.

I was still for several minutes, staring out over the vast horizon to scan.

Nothing.

This was a lesson I'd learned barely a day prior- whatever a pony sees in that desolate and white place, there is always something.  Especially if there are landmarks with writing.

When I was nudged, it was without lenience against my shoulder.  Quartz had gotten tired of waiting.  We moved, and it seemed I was the only one with weight on my mind.  Let me say now, willing to be right is a complete pain in the ass.

[***]

It wasn't more than a ten minute hike along the tracks before we came a field of dirt.  Rocks jutted up from tan soil, the cracks filled with that familiar blue.  The hairline veins shimmered with inner light, some of them growing the crystalline edges of razors that crackled beneath careful, steel shod hooves.  We were able to watch the patterns of light roll across each others coats while we trotted among it, finding barely buried discs of grooved gold that had been scattered about.  The ground followed the curve of the hill, and it was at the base we'd found what we'd been searching for.

Nestled in a ring of mountainous crystal growth, we had found the “W T Reservation.”  The entrance was a dip in the crystal; a ramp led to the opening, either side carefully inlaid with peeking gold in the earth.  We approached slowly, weapons drawn, and eyes darting about to cover what we knew as “zones” and corners.

Inside, there was broken concrete sidewalks, and a glossy cobblestone lobby.  Surrounding the cul-de-sac's edges there were crumbled houses, filled with still standing stairs and stubborn doorframes amidst brick rubble.  Across from the entrance, there was a huge, rectangular building, it's windows long since boarded off, the inside dark and mute.  Within the center, though, there was a large, fragile building that was the strangest thing we'd ever found on the Trot.

It was a greenhouse.  Many panels of the frosted roof were missing or broken, but out of them there was slithering the brown bark of a curling, still living tree.  It's coils wrapped around the crumbling greenhouse supports, constricting one side slightly inward and lifting the others, while the garish door curved into greenly rusting flowers and vines over wilting glass.  The windows to the place had tinted with the filth of a century and then some, but they still had a shine on the outside between the crap.  Not to mention, several swirling patterns of colorful and fresh paint that had somehow managed to stick.  Quartz, mesmerized by the eldritch and still growing place, called dibs on searching it first.

The last place we cared for was the an old diner, pill-shaped and on wheels, which had barred windows shuttered by dense metal curtains.  Many of the panels had tilted out of place, allowing us paltry views of what was thrown about inside through the slits.  We all recognized the boxes and cans.  Quartz gave me a look.  “Yeah, yeah.  I'll get inside.” I conceded, starting to circle it with distracted eyes.  She dragged Miser away, lifting her tail to keep his attention.  For somepony like Quartz, I guess he was an easy little guy to peg.

The door was sturdy and locked.  Through the already broken glass I could see another vending machine which had been tipped to brace the door closed.  Below it, there were unfamiliar bones.  They were very thin, very long, and very frail looking.  The head was smooth and the snout quite long, especially for anything equine, and it was far larger than one.  It was wearing a thick, padded vest, which was black and printed with the word “POLICE” across the chest.  Below it, in much smaller print, was an alien word none of us would be able to pronounce- “QAELTAQA.”

I looked around the “town.”  This place had cops?  I thought.  Way too small for more than-  I snorted the thought closed.  After that little epiphany, I began to circle the building.  Things turned out to be easy enough: a ladder was behind it, the back of the diner facing one of the blue crystal walls confining the town.  Though it was cramped, getting up wasn't otherwise difficult.  It was getting the roof hatch lifted that proved to be the problem, though after some tugging the age gave way and I was able to flip it on it's head.  A burst of dusty air shot into my face, giving a layer to my goggles and wrapped face.  It wasn't anything new.  I had been sucking the stale smell from the mine for a good few hours.  The smell of old food was more refreshing.

I hadn't gotten more than peek inside before I heard Miser machine-gunning the word “Hey!” from below.  When I turned to him, he was jogging in place.  He kept looking back in the direction of the greenhouse, turning his entire toward it, than back to me.  “Problem!” He said. “Big problem!”

I slid down the ladder, my weight causing it to clatter, my hooves thumping sharply on the stone.  At least it's not my fault, this time.  I thought.

[***]

The inside of the greenhouse was plucked out of one of the old magazines.

Warm.  Humid.  Green.  Funny how that last one had never been real until I'd seen it.

One massive tree stood amid a pool of jade, whispering grass as tall as I was.  Around it was a ring of water, while the roots were strangling the fountain's centerpiece to nourish itself on the moist dirt below the broken stone.  It had been growing for so long, the deformed, twisting branches had taken to prodding the greenhouse walls and curling it on itself, or wrapping around the iron bars through the gaps of shattered glass.

Even further from the epicenter there was more dirt.  It had been obviously moved, or exposed from moving the cobble to expose the warmed earth.  From it, bushes had grown.  Roses, berries I didn't know the name of.  They had mingled and fought as they had grown.  One half was a set of creeping vines that formed a blooming lingerie around the tree trunk.  The roses formed a curving, uneven wall, each one in different colors.  Blue, red, yellow, violet.  Some of the necks had been snipped, the decapitated stems having long since dried.

Large plates and pots -some of them made for plants, some made for cooking- were filled with dirt and blooming all sorts of flowers I could never properly name.  A veritable schmorgisboard, except for some of the lighter violet ones.  I remembered those from “Colt's Life” - Nightshade.  Some of the containers had been hung or braced up well off the ground, their bottoms and sides painted with strokes of color like the billboards and glass.  I was starting to get even more worried – the paint formed patterns.  Vortexes of color, encircling large dots of yellow so bright it appeared white in the wrong light.

Within the bark, scars were so deep that even the cloud covered, glass-filtered sun was able to display them.  The tree was tattooed upon every inch, with those same swirls.  The dots at their centers had been both dug and painted, the craters filled with ivory color.

Somepony had done this.  Willingly, and with a hoof that knew not to kill even the humble growth of a tree with their carvings.  Yet we had seen nopony.

Something was very, very wrong.  I knew it, and I had assumed my traveling companions had as well.  It is a sin, perhaps, to be the only one correct, and to never speak up.

All throughout the place was a pungent, pleasant odor.  The bark was scarred with carvings and sigils,    White blooms and yellow stalks crept out along the spindly, sturdy branches.  What hung from them was strange.  There were circles, the centers adorned with purposeful patterns of webbing.  They were made of old branches, or cable, or even surgical tubing.  They had been woven, as if by spiders, with wires or fishing line or... Sinew.  The spiderweb disks were wobbling against the tree in many different places, brushed by wind and decorated with soft accoutrements.  Leaves, and white feathers.

Between the edges of the bushes, Quartz was sneaking about, craning her neck to peer past and around blocked vision.   She'd poke her head up now and then, looking around.  She was talking quietly, urging somepony: “It's okay!  We won't hurt you.”

Her voice, having been lowered to the delicacy of the flowers themselves, was swimming through the brush.  Miser and I waited where we were.  What else was there to do, when a feminine touch was reduced to nothing more than a cautious whisper?

Faces peeked from everywhere.  Pink noses, at first, sniffling at our unfamiliar scent.  Long snouts, coated in ivory fur and tipped with glistening nostrils, were surrounding us.  Then, from behind the tree came a face.  It was brave amid her peers, oogling us from behind the scalp of a teddy ursa gripped between her teeth.

She was no more than a few years old.  Her coat was that of snow, her bright round eyes blinking.  As she drug her stuffed friend into the light of the ugly sky, I saw she had brilliant ruby eyes.  Her miniscule spine and paper coated ribs were peppered with long black spots, her tuft of a tail curled downward, ready to shoot up and signal the others watching us.  Around her neck was a trinket in the form of a small ring, with weaves of fishing line and wires that formed a web.  From it hung three downy feathers.

That poor little deer.  I can only imagine how we, armed even as poorly we were, appeared to the tiny, wide eyed doe.  I laid on my belly, curling my forehooves beneath me to appear as small as I could.  I tried to motion Miser down, but it took him far too long to get the idea.

I grew even more worried seeing the kid.  Without a doubt, somepony had carved the tree.  Somepony had painted the billboards.  Somepony had grown the flowers, food or poison, with intent.  Children clutching a teddy ursa rarely knew the meaning behind “art” or a green hoof.

“Hey! Hey.  It's okay.” Quartz said.  She took a queue from me, and laid down.  She was trying to appear harmless.

Her eyes were very quick.  She dragged a small blanket up, wrapping herself up within it before presenting herself behind her teddy shield.   She sat herself down in front of us, at the base of the tree, where she could see each one of us without having to turn her head.

The blanket was strange, and morbid.  It was furred on one side.  The other was rough, cross-stitched together and covered in patches.  Some holes had been punched through it, and she took the knotted edges between her cloven hooves to pull it tight around herself.  It was leather, the fur of which was the same color, and pattern, as her body.

“What's your name?” Quartz asked her.

“Sunglow.” She replied, in a tiny voice as smooth as warm water.  She was hard to hear.

“That's a pretty name.” came the reply.  “What about your friend?”

“Growly.”  She held up the teddy ursa and wiggled it's button-eyed face.  “Rrr!”

I snorted out a smile.  Her ears and eyes swiveled toward me.  “Rrr!” I replied, as weak as my voice would allow.  It was still enough to make her cuddle Growly up close.  Quartz gave me a flat look.  I rolled my eyes, but took the hint.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” Quartz asked.

Sunglow, confused, took a long look around.  The children had been in so many places, and were small enough to fit in spots we hadn't considered.  Dozens of big red eyes were staring at us from below things, atop of things, and from behind things that kept them under the cover of some level of shade.  Many of them had the shapes of what they believed to be weapons in their mouths.  Little hoof-held rakes, shivs made of greenhouse glass or pot shards, hedgeclippers that were far too heavy for their bodies to wield, and dirty little gardening shovels.  “But I'm not.” she replied.

Miser and I kept looking around, and he shook his head at her.  She started up again.  “Okay, you're not.  So, where are your parents?”

“They're everywhere.” Sunglow replied.  “They're all in the long sleep.”

We all went quiet for a moment, while the strange little girl kept peering at us as if we had just asked something incredibly stupid.   Quartz swallowed a lump of air.  “Can you show us?”

Sunglow nodded and stood up, her webbed trinket wobbling and not making a sound.  She and Growly led us to the outskirts of the inner greenhouse, which the warmth hadn't fully touched.

Snow tumbled in from outside through the holes in glass, and the gaps between warped iron supports.  At the far end, there was a large hole in the greenhouse wall that had been made through broken glass and warping iron, supported by old wooden planks and piled junk.  Near that rear entrance rested other another unfamiliar and large shape, facing toward the opening and laid within the snow, having sat so long that their white hide was covered in small dunes.

The body had the color of flowers and grass before them in a plate, untouched offerings the children had no doubt placed.  They had clothing beneath the frosting of snow.  The extremities were furred, the thick leathers tightly bound by wrappings of... Sinew, and more thinly cut leather.  The surfaces had been dyed lightly blue and patterned with the same swirls as the tree, in sways of white and yellow.

She was huge.  Twice the height of any of the pickers, half again perhaps what I was.  She was also armed with a small rifle, hidden behind a cloth wrapping of hodgepodge grey-white camoflague which left the chamber exposed.  Around her, and the entrance, there was the glitter of filthy brass casings wedged into the cracks of the cobblestone.

There small divots in her skin, visible through holes in the cloth.  The pair of bullets holes had stained the cloth to an almost brown red.  There was no steam coming from her half-open mouth.  She didn't move.

I grimaced a moment, while Quartz closed her eyes and rubbed the back of her neck.  Miser just stared between the body, and the kids around him.  This just kept getting better and better.

I took my place as the asshole of the group, and went to jostle her.  After moving her limp form an inch or so, she still had no reaction.  “That's not going to work.” Sunglow said. “I've been trying to get mother up for a long time like that, we just have to wait.”

She just had to drop it upon us like that, didn't she?  “Are they all like this?” I asked her.

Sunglow nodded.  “Some are long-sleeping in the buildings outside.”

“What about you?” Quartz chimed in.  “Who did this?”

“This?" she asked, looking at the body. "The mares in white.” She said.  I grit my teeth at the notion.  “They talked with mother and father, then they argued with the guns for a while and the white mares left.  We were all supposed to go to the long sleep.  Mother told them the children don't need the long sleep, so they left us to tend to the garden for when they woke up.”

Quartz grunted.  Miser kept looking back and forth between us, nervous to the point of confusion.  “This is bad, really bad.  What if they come back?” he started to jitter out words of warning we already knew.

Quartz sighed.  “How long ago did this happen?” She asked.

“Thirty nights.” Sunglow replied.  Having become worried with what we had just tried to do to her mother, the child continued. “The long sleep is very deep.  They said we need to stay awake in case Luna tries to take us all.”

“Okay.  Sunglow, you keep, uh, doing what you're doing okay?”  I waited for her response.  She just hooked her forelegs beneath Growly's, and sat back on the blanket.  “I've got to talk with my friend.”

Quartz was already glaring at me when we huddled.  We talked in whispers.  “Don't you dare bucking say what I know you're going to-”

“No.” I mouthed out.  “No.  What the hell are we going to do with one kid, let alone a dozen?”

“What else can we do?” She snapped, barely above her breath.  “We can't just leave them here like this.”

Miser was a bit more down to Earth.  Maybe a bit too much for Quartz.  “They've got a lot of food and water.  Enough for a really long time.”  Quartz gave him her needle-thin eyes.  “I'm just saying.”

“He's right.” I said.  “If we can get south, we might be able to get somepony to come back that can do something.  Maybe even get them out of here.”

“Yeah, some southern prick that's only out for the eats?  It would literally be taking candy from a baby. Who would pass that up?” She was practically spitting.

“The Snowflakes, apparently.” I replied.

“And us.” Miser said.

“Yeah, but...” She shook her head.  “Why?  It's not like the Snowflakes have a heart or anything.  They're probably just getting reinforcements to move all the shit they found here.”

Sunglow spoke up. “I can hear you really well.” She said.  “Why are you worried?”

It startled Quartz.  Miser took to shame quite suddenly, leaning back to grumble something about hating kids too smart for their own good.  I leaned back, and gestured with a hoof- “Be my guest, Quartz.  Answer the girl.”

Quartz opened her mouth halfway, showing teeth.  She gave an angered whinny, and brushed past me to address Sunglow.  “Okay.  Look.  We can help you alright?”

“We don't need help.” Sunglow replied sternly.  Smart ass kid...

“Sunglow, please.  We can help. You just have to trust us.  Your parents aren't waking up.”

“Not now.  But they will.  We just have to wait a little longer.”

“I... Sunglow, you need to leave.  They aren't going to wake up.”

“Yes they will!” Sunglow snapped right back at her.  I kept eying the body on the ground.  It still hadn't moved.  Sunglow tied up one of Growly's arms and slung him over her back as she stood as tall as she could.  “They always do.  They always come back.  You've only been here for minutes, you don't know.”

Quartz had taken a couple steps back, and sat.  She tried to plead by moving her hooves about.  “They've been shot, Sunglow.  You know what that is, right?”

“Yes.  That doesn't matter.  They've been shot before.”  Some of the other children were starting to emerge, wielding their tools as menacingly as they could.

I tried to get Quartz's attention.  “Shut up, Quartz. You're making things worse.”

“Piss off.” she snarled.  “Sunglow, you have to leave.  You're parents aren't waking up, and we can help you.”

“We don't need help.” Sunglow said, as if addressing someone of her own age.  “You're starting to sound just like the mares in white did before we made them leave.”

I almost laughed at the surprised lift of Quartz's lip.  Tell it like it is, kiddo.  Then again, I had to wonder how the kids had driven off the armed Snowflakes.  Not to mention why.

“We aren't leaving our family.” Sunglow said.  “If you try to make us, you'll regret it.”

Quartz released a deep breath.  She lofted her forehooves as if in front of a gun mouth.  “Alright Sunglow.  Alright.”

I decided to end it before before Quartz added a “but” at the start of a new way to argue.  While it was amusing to watch her get told off, neither of them deserved the agitation.  “Hey, Sunglow.”  I said.  Quartz whinnied at me.  Sunglow turned to me and perked her ears.

If the kid was going to take charge like she had, I figured I had better treat her like a leader.  It's not like we were there to ruin anything for them.  Heck, we might have even made new friends, as bizarre as it was.  “We need to rest.  Is there a place you'll let us?”

The question seemed to confuse her.  She pouted and looked down at the ground for a while.  A few of the other kids came out to look at us, then approach her and talk so low it was impossible to hear.  Sunglow continued to listen from every angle as she was assailed with near silent words.

“I saw an old food building out front near the entrance.” I said.  “We could use that.”  All the kids looked up at me from their blankets to where I sat, and then back to her.  Then, under the eyes of her little peers, she nodded at me.

“You son of a bitch.” Quartz said to me.  “Whatever happens to these kids is on your head.”

“Then I guess you can hate me later if anything happens.”

She lifted her head a moment in disdain.  “Just... Just take a picture.”

I raised a brow toward her.

“Something like this is a lot easier to believe than our word.  Going to need that if these kids are going to get any help.”

“Yeah, I know that.  Just having you ask me to do something is new.”

  I motioned toward the door we'd entered through.  Miser and her started to trot, and I shuffled out my camera.  I snuck my head through the strap, and lifted it to my face.  The kids all started to retreat to their respective hiding places, albeit slowly, and backing away from me the entire time.  Sunglow took a step back, staring at it curiously.  

I should have known.  The way the kids were hiding.  How when I lifted the camera, the look in Sunglow's eyes was like she'd been caught in the lights of some screaming machine.

“Say 'grass!'” I said.

Click.

No sooner had the picture started to print than Sunglow started to whimper.  The circle of children gasped as they vanished into their respective hideaways, and she scrambled away in a backpedal.  Then, she screamed.

Sunglow pressed her hooves to herself in scattered places over her face and chest, looking at them like she was bleeding from her pores.  She cried out a well pronounced worth that was jibberish to me, then screeched into a weeping yell once more.  I leaned forward, motioning a hoof down ward. “Whoa, whoa. Calm down.” I tried to tell her during her hysteria.  The flash bulb hadn't even been in.

Miser jumped at the noise, bouncing on his hooves in place like some attack was coming from everywhere at once.  Quartz snapped back at the sudden mania of the doe, looking at me, then to her.  “What the hell did you do?”

I gave a beleagured shrug.  “I took a picture!” I said back.

The sound of a gasp came.  Air went across a dry throat to fill huge lungs.  Miser and Quartz went wide eyed as I turned toward motion.  “Mother” and I stared at each other a moment, her lifted head blinking off sleep with the adrenaline of her doe's sudden wake-up call.

She looked at me, she looked at her daughter.  She snapped to standing faster than anything hooved I had ever seen, darting over to scoop up her daughter with a foreleg where she dangled helplessy at her chest.  Standing on three legs, “Mother” started sputtering a flurry of words I'd never be able to properly pronounce.

“Whoa, whoa!  No harm meant! No harm!” I tried to say, exposing my hooves.

“Mother” asked Sunglow something.  Sunglow shrieked a reply in the same indecipherable tongue.  Then, “Mother” looked at me with flames and brimstone, pupils wide as plates from behind narrowed eyes.  She threw her head back and let out a sharp, earsplitting whistle, over and over.

The sound of galloping hooves came from several angles outside the windows.  Miser danced in place to look left and right, seeing nothing outside the dingy walls but darting shadows.  The hooves gathered near the hole in the back of the greenhouse, one set sliding to a stop.

Biggest son of a bitch I have ever seen.  I had to look up, while standing, just to watch him lower his head to enter the greenhouse.  He was dressed like the others, but taller, and meatier.  His chest was covered in thick fur, his ragged ears below a set of huge, sharpened, five-pointed antlers that dangled with small trinkets on short string.  Feathers, a couple tiny skulls, and several flat teeth.

“Diner!” I ordered. “Go, go!” I turned and started to gallop, my camera jingling at my chest all the while.  He roared something after me, with more words I didn't understand, and started to give chase.

Miser made it to the door first.  He lowered his head, threw his weight into it at the shoulder, and tore it straight off the hinges with his weight.  He kept right on going, swearing something about how it hurt, but never missing his stride.  Quartz was right after him, her more elegant steps swooping her through the door.  I managed to get through it, but with it came a smash.  I turned to look behind myself, and the buck hadn't been able to fit those antlers through the door as he stood. He pried them from the broken doorframe, disappearing into the greenhouse, as at least twenty other massive doe's and bucks spilled from the outskirts and rushed after us.

“Ladder on the side!” I screamed to the two equines ahead of me.  “Door is screwed!”

Miser leaped and managed to skip a pony-height amount of rungs, yanking himself up toward the roof.  Bullets formed small geysers, without noise besides small chirps that barely registered over the stomping of hooves behind us.  I took another look back, finding “Mother” trying to take careful aim between the bundle of deer heading toward us.  Unable to aim without danger of hitting the others, she snarled and dropped the gun to head back to the greenhouse, and her daughter.

Miser yelled something as Quartz crested to the roof. I saw him pointed.  I turned around just in time to see it, diving to the side as a pair of softly ornamented antlers tried to scoop out where I had been.  I skidded to a stop as he reared up, planning to put his weight behind those sharp bones.

I yanked out my shovel.  I held it up and braced it.  Go ahead, asshole.  Fall right on.

Too bad it was the head side that was down.  The mouthgrip definitely left a bruise, and the sturdy neck of my “weapon” let me hear a snap.  He stumbled to the side after sinking the sharp end several inches into a cobblestone crack.  I stood and yanked the spade up out of the ground, and as he looked back to yell something else, turned my shovel onto it's side and swung.

He crouched and turned, but too late.  The edge had enough force to wedge into the base of his antler halfway.  We both noticed it was stuck at the same time.

I twisted.  He flailed his head.  The antler snapped off and started to bleed, the the sudden ooze leaking into one eye.  It gave me another chance, so I took it.

He hadn't risen.  When he tried, I hit him so hard with the flat side of that thing my bones shook.  His chin bounced off the rock below him.  He spat out teeth and weakened, still furious words while he wobbled into a stand.

Nope.  Another swing, and his nose ricocheted off the diner wall.  He fell again, and kicked to try and get up with broken balance.

The large body was blocking the rest of the path well enough to give me the time I needed.  While two does dragged him out by his back hooves, I was climbing.  When I reached the top, Quartz hauled me up with an exerted scream.  “Bust the ladder, drag it up!” I said.

She kicked at it, but it didn't give way.  On my side, I put my weight behind the shovel.  The tip slipped beneath the panel that bolted it to the diner, and I pushed the shovel like a lever.  It tore the bolts free, and I shoved Quartz aside to get the next one.  It clanged as another, fresher, thinner body filled the path below.  The doe was started to climb, giving us a new problem.

If she kept the ladder, they'd have just as easy a way in.

“Shoot her!” I said over my grip on the shovel. “Get her off the damn thing!”

“What, and kill her?!  That'll just make it worse!”

“Not the time for moral reservations!”

“Oh, you can kiss the hardest part of my-”

Miser solved our problem.  He emerged from the open hatch, wielding between his teeth the connected wire of an old-world toaster.  He stood on the ladder rungs that lead into the diner, rearing up, and threw it straight down the ladder.  With the ding of the devices bell, it slammed into the climbing doe and plucked her off.

I didn't wait.  I gripped one of the rungs with my teeth, and motioned for Quartz to finish what I'd started so we could pull it up.  She followed my first example, and the second panel split free, rusted bolts squealing.  We pulled it up to the roof once it was free, and stood there a moment, waiting and breathing.

Please don't let them be able to jump this high.  Please.

We all peered over the edges.  The group had started to circle, saying things to one another in speech so quiet we would never have known they'd been talking had their lips not been moving.  We got worried, angered looks from them, nothing but red eyes and furred bodies fuming.  A few tended to the buck I'd wounded.

“Lets get inside.” I said, watching them coalesce around the diner.  “We need to find a way out.  And maybe reinforce that front door.”

Quartz squinted at me.  Miser leaned back with a long, unwinding sigh, and descended back down. With that we followed him, and our night with the deer began.

[***]

I slid the empty soda bottle back and forth.  The counter was covered in grit that made it a little game, trying to get it from one hoof to the other without falling.  I had been playing for a few hours.

Behind the counter, Miser and Quartz had been resting.  They had laid themselves down after a short flurry of activity.  We'd all run around the inside of the diner, looking for loose things to pile up at the front door and around the already tilted soda machine.  Couldn't be too careful, even with the barred windows and off center metal shutters.  Once that had finished, we'd found some more old world food that hadn't been touched since the place had been sealed off.  Quartz had questioned why, but then I reminded her of the greenhouse- the deer had been growing their own food well enough that they'd lasted this long.  Why bother with what we had just found?

We had too much time to think about one another while inside the place.  Pondered on getting the stove working to stave off the chill, but it clicked wrong when we tried, so left it without power just to be safe.  Mulled on the images of the vending machines as we had a days travel back, and found that the Crystal Cola machine still had some of its supply.  The tiny flecks of crystal in the drink were a strange addition that gave the stuff a glitter inside the clear liquid when shaken, and had started to glow bright enough to look like a starfield once night had hit.  I had been the only one brave enough to try it, and had lost any reason to sleep for at least a few hours thanks to whatever minty things had been used in the concoction.  I was on the third bottle by the time the deer had started to peer between cracks in the metal shutters.

They were watching us from outside.  They made no noises.  Dozens of red eyes glimmered when their pupils caught the flickering florescent light in the ceiling, seeming content to watch.  They waited, the image of their gaze distorting through the bottle when I passed it in front of my muzzle.

With what I'd left back in the mines, I was in no condition to take their looks for long.  I leaned back and started to play catch with myself, tossing the bottle up and cradling it over and over as we waited for the day to break.

“You really have a way of screwing things up.” Quartz grunted at me.

“Aww, thanks.” I replied, wagging the bottle at her.  “You really should take credit when it's due, though.  It was your idea that scared the little doe.”

“But you went through with it.”

“I bet if nothing had happened, you'd be a lot happier to admit it.”

Quartz snorted, but shut right up.  Miser kept trying to peek over the counter, hoping the ones outside were gone.  No such luck, of course.  Their silhouettes were still framed against outdoor lights that had clicked on with some sort of automation, framing through shuttered windows what could be seen of the exit.  It was beyond the wall of angry, patient, whispering bodies.

I took my shovel out, and put the bottle next to a set of cracked plates behind the counter.  I braced it on the dense old wood, looking it over.  Ace of spades.  Who in their right mind would give something like this that kind of a corny title?  That was as bad as naming your kid after a gambling game or drug and expecting them to be an outstanding, honest pony.

Well, almost.  The old world, I guessed then, had different values on things.

I took to scraping off the card image on the shovel with a steel-shoed hoof.  It took some time, but wasn't difficult.  I retitled it “Shovel,” and after blowing away the chips of paint, was satisfied with the fresher look.  The paint hadn't been stamped on- it had been some kind of thin crap, the black head of the shovel retaining the alloy's tint below the emblem.

Miser piped up.  “It wasn't a bad idea.” he admitted.

Quartz raised a brow toward him.

“Well, okay, it was.  But we only know that now.”  He took another peek, and getting assaulted with open red eyes, sunk back down behind the counter.  “Doesn't look like they really use too much mechanical stuff.  Maybe Sunglow thought she got shot.”

“Not funny.” I said, remembering Book Worm's picture.

“I... Wasn't trying to be.” he said, confused.  Then he grimaced when I went quiet, occupying myself with the shovel while I took the stares of two more sets of eyes.  “I think stuff like that just scares them.”

My camera was still slung over my neck.  I waved at the still attached picture with a hoof, catching the edge repeatedly. I hadn't gotten the time to remove it during the chaos.  I joked with myself that it seemed to be a growing, bad habit.  “I don't think so.” I replied.  “We got shot at on the way here.  If they're smart enough to keep a rifle in firing condition, they're smart enough to realize a camera isn't dangerous.”

Out came the scrapbook, and off came the picture.  I started to leaf through it again, confident the wind wouldn't whisk away of the looser contents.  I made a note to find some adhesive of some sort, and do it soon.

Quartz grumbled, while Miser gave another half hearted peek.  When he did, there came a long, shrill scraping noise from one of the shutters.  We all looked, then.

I recognized the face, whenever the jittery light above illuminated it.  It was the buck I'd injured on the way in.  He was drawing the pointed tip of his remaining, decorated antler along the shutter through the bars.  Others had stepped back, letting him sharpen it on each shutter, shoving hard occasionally.  I came to realize he testing each one for weakness.  He had started to pace when he hadn't found any, muttering things too silent to hear at us whenever we looked out at him.

Though we stopped checking nearly as often, we knew they were there.  We could hear them passing breathy speech amid one another, and what words we could piece together were still no more than jibberish.  Then, we started to hear one of them singing a song.

It came from beyond the rest of the deer.  It was accompanied by crying and sniffling, the same noises Sunglow had been making after I had taken to somehow frightening her.  Though it was in their strange language, I knew the melody.  Hell, all three of us trapped there knew it, having been submitted to it to drown out the crying on bad Resilience nights.

“Hush now, quiet now, it's time to lay your sleepy head...”

Miser and I both crested the counter in order to look.  One of the street lights was shining off of Sunglow's blanket, the doe curled up, and completely alone in the light.  Her mother was nearby, watching her from a distance as if she had been stricken with some lethal disease.  She was singing the lullaby, trying to comfort the doe as the little thing pleaded in their language.

Just what the hell did they think had I done to her?

The buck hissed something back toward the distant scene, and 'mothers' long ears perked to the words.    Her shadow suddenly stopped, the singing abruptly ending and giving way to silent movement.  There came a distant chirp.  The glass of one of the windows shattered inwards.  There was a window above the stove, above which there were cooking tools hanging loosely on hooks.  A pot gave off a loud pang as it was thrown from it's hook with a wound the size of a golf ball, causing everything on it to clatter and resonate.

Silencers.

If she had been any better with the thing, we'd have been a pair of pickers instead of a trio.  At least we knew then not to look up from that point on.

The pot had bounced to a ringing stop.  As it clanged upon the ground, I heard grunts and the pained snarl of air sucking between clenched teeth.  Even though my heart was still beating from the sudden noise, another idea clicked.

I waited until the ringing had stopped.  I needed to be sure.  I took one of the empty bottles, and threw it at one of the hanging pans.  The gong of the impact and the shatter of glass heralded a yowl from outside, while I got another one of Quartz's venomous looks.  I heard the buck yell one word, three times, each yelp increasing in volume with the final recitation a roar.  With the strange pronunciation of our language, registering it took some time.

“Kwi-eet, kwi-eet, kwi-eet!”  He started to spit more phrases in the below-the-breath intensity, no doubt cursing us out further.  Maybe he was making some grand speech to inspire his fellows.

Quartz traded glances between the swinging pan, and me.  Miser did the same, peeking from beneath his forelegs, which he had ducked beneath after the bullet passed by.  I gave them a wide-eyed smile.   We had something, at least, but we'd need to get a hoof on it.

“No.” she whispered.  She kept motioning her hoof to the ground, as if doing so would nail me into place.  “No! It'll just make things worse!”

I hefted another bottle, and threw it.  The pan tumbled from it's hook- and, so did most of the other utensils.  They came down in a jumble as the bars holding them gave way, the things scattering to either side of the stove, and a good chunk of them onto our side.  I managed to grab a skillet and a ladle.  I had to apologize to Miser- he'd caught most of the things with his back.  At least the hooks hadn't been sharp.

Quartz pinned my foreleg down with a hoof, leaning her weight onto me.  It was atop my scrapbook, compressing the pages.  I halted immediately at that.  “Not this time!” She sneered.  “Do you really want to piss them off that badly?”

“Of course not.” I replied.  “But if things do turn south, I want something.  Besides... I need to know what I did wrong.”  Quartz squinted, confused.  “I'd never hurt some weird kid unless they were shooting at me.  That little doe out there is the only one that seems to speak our language well enough to get an answer.”

Miser had taken to wielding some of the fallen utensils, but had held himself back from ringing his steel horseshoe off a saucepan when he saw Quartz restraining me.  She let me go with a start.  “You selfish son of a-”

“Hey, hey.  If I can unbuck this, it might get us out of here alive.” I said.  “Well, you guys maybe.  They aren't stupid, maybe they'll just look at me when they decide on who screwed them over.”

Miser gaped.  “You are really good at finding ways to get yourself killed.”

Quartz couldn't hide her laugh completely.  A snort escaped.  I grinned.  “Just one of many talents.” I said, with a grunt.  I was released, and rubbed off the print she'd left on my foreleg.

I lifted a few things over the counter as a test against “Mothers” eyes.  The skillet went up first.  Nothing.  My shovel, then, with my goggles wrapped around it.  Nothing.  I hoped the exercise had been entertaining, at least.

Finally, I took the one thing that had gotten all of us into the mess.  I slung the neck strap of my camera over the shovels mouthgrip, and lifted it.  The instant it crested, I heard the clatter of cloven hooves scrambling for cover.  There were a few whispered words passed outside, and when I dared a peek beside it, found they had all retreated from the slits in the shutters.

Really?  Bucking really?

I crept back down and took it away from the shovel.  “Well, that's another thing they don't like.” Quartz so wisely reiterated.  “Might be able to use that too.”

“Why though? It's not like the thing is dangerous.”  I turned the lens to face me, looking it over.  “It didn't kill Sunglow.  Didn't even open up her skin.” I started to crack a stupid joke.  “It's not like it...”

I blinked.  I fell back down to the scrapbook, staring at the picture.  The wide eyed doe, glancing outward from the backdrop of flowers, cobble, and frightened, hiding children that were out of focus.

It's not like it steals souls or anything.

“Quartz, I'm going to need you to make some noise.”

“What? Why?”

“I need to get on the roof.”  I looked around for what I could.  The last bottle was all I could use.

I held the picture of Sunglow with my teeth, and poked my head out.  I saw the eyes watching, and the glint of a scope in the distance.  I waved around the picture, my head in full and stupid view.

Nothing violent happened.  They stared.  They squinted and spat more curses.

I returned behind the counter.  Then, I snapped my scrapbook closed, and slapped Sunglow's portrait atop the cover.  I started to fold it, over and over, until it was about as thick as a twig.  I took the bottle, and stuffed the picture into the hole while Miser and Quartz watched.

“Okay.  This is going to solve our problems.”

“Or get you killed.” Quartz insisted.

“That's a solved problem for you, isn't it?” I snorted.  “Make some noise.  Stop when I yell.”

Things clanged.  The ringing of metal on metal made the quiet ones shirk painfully.  I got into the kitchen, and in it's back near the fridges we'd ransacked, was the ladder up.  I had the bottle clutched in my mouth the whole time, the spit making it slippery while I climbed.

I threw open the hatch.  The bottle wanted to freeze to my lips, but I kept them wiggling just enough to stop it from adhering to my skin.  I walked toward the edge, seeing catlike stances covering ears with hooves wrapping their own heads in blankets.  Even 'mother,' at her range, was crouched and trying to block out the sounds.

I took the bottle from between my lips, and yelled out “Hey!” as strongly as I could.  It drew across a cold throat, the breath painful.  The metal din from below stopped, and I hefted the bottle.  I waited, to let the deer see me.

I hurled the bottle past the rising bodies, and red eyes below.  They watched the bottle smash into the cobble, cringing at the impact.  After a time, 'Mother' approached, using the edge of her gun to brush away some of the glass.

When she smoothed out the photograph, she kept it pinned.  She started to call out with her abnormal words, gathering to her the attention of the one-horned buck.  As he circled her, I can only say they were talking among themselves. I was too far away to know for sure what happened.

He took up the picture, and began to walk.  He snorted at Sunglow, gesturing with his head, toward one of the low street lamps.  Several of the other deer trotted off toward the two of them, forming a circle around them as the sniffling Sunglow was brazenly shoved toward them.  One lifted her from the ground, balancing her demure figure atop her own head, to be near the brilliant light.

The buck gave her the picture.  She continued to breath deeply as she submitted it to the bulb; it was hot enough that, after a time, the photo began to curl.  Soon, the smolder of ash was lifting from the corner, stealing the photograph away and making it vanish into drifting, orange flakes.

Once it was done, Sunglow was allowed back down.  The other deer surrounded her, 'mother' given space to approach and finally embrace her.  The scared doe was calm as her mother again started to sing the lullaby, brushing over her ivory scalp.

“I didn't mean to hurt you.” I called out.  “I didn't know.”

Every eye settled back on me, rebounding from the cradled Sunglow.  They started to re-approach the diner, one by one falling back into a crimson-eyed mass.  “Mother” released Sunglow, moving arm her gun and take a stance... With me on the roof, in plain view.

“Sunglow, I didn't want to hurt you.  I didn't know.”

“Kwi-eet!” The buck screamed again.  He gave his head a shake, the ornaments swinging below the  gleaming edges of his remaining antler.

Sunglow unsheathed Growly, holding him close. I could see her own red eyes glimmering from where she was, refracting the light of the street post.  “I didn't know.  I'm sorry.” I repeated, saying it rather than yelling, hoping she'd hear me.  “They're gonna kills us.” I finally growled.  “You're going to have to watch, and you're the only one that's going to know what I even said.”

Sunglow stared at me from her place, far and away.  She clutched at Growly, and blinked as her elders approached and her Mother cycled the chamber.  She spoke, or so I still believe, and the rest of the deer suddenly stopped.  They turned back to me after she was finished, spitting out more words- to me, that time, as I stood on the roof and left myself exposed.

“It was a mistake.  I didn't know.  I don't have any reason to hurt any of you, unless you give me one.  Just like you, right?”

Sunglow spoke again.  The crowd collectively narrowed their eyes, but relented in their advance.  The buck spoke up, and Sunglow returned his speech to me in words I understood.  The world was quiet enough in that place, I could hear even her from the range she was at, though she had to yell at the top of her tiny lungs.  “You are not our enemy?”

“We didn't even know you were here.”

Sunglow passed it on, and the group paused to collect thoughts from it's attendants.  The buck spoke to her again, and she got on all of her hooves to argue over Growly's head.

I'd seen brave things before.  Most of it was actually just disguised stupidity- a lot of that I can claim for myself.  Watching that little doe bark defiantly from behind a stuffed animal at a troop of angry, shadowed bodies... Well, who was I, from then on, to judge?

There was complete silence for a time.  I was watched again, and there were whispers.  I felt like I was back in the mines for a moment, panicking in front of the wall of eyes and fanged smiles.

“You are not our enemy.” she said.  “But you are not our friend.  If what you say is true, you must be judged.  Come down from where you are cowering, and talk for a while.  We will make our decision.”

I let out a breath I had never known I'd been holding.

At least we weren't dead.  Not yet.

[***]

Too afraid to touch my camera, the deer had kept me at gun and antlerpoint until I had packed it away. I was then separated from my two traveling companions, though not by distance.  I was surrounded and watched, a tall, sour-faced deer to every side.  Both the buck, and “mother” were close behind the “wardens.”  One with her rifle, the other with his weight and his sharp, severed antler in his teeth.  Miser and Quartz, though stripped of their weaponized cookware once they'd descended the tilted ladder, were allowed to walk together and whisper between themselves, albeit while being carefully watched.

Lead by Sunglow, Growly waggled in the string that held him on her back.  I could see her through the thin legs of the deer in front of me, her small figure trying to say things toward the others.  They disregarded her almost as if scolding, but much of it had seemed like it was laced with caution more than urgency.

Each one of them had been within the thick, fur-lined leather.  All the does had a small disc strapped atop their foreheads, made of whatever they could have found.  They were cut out of metal, mostly, the jagged edges put into beige surgical tubing.  Atop the metals where was webbing made of stitching wire, which led down to tiny accoutrements that usually rested just above their brow.  Every one of the discs had a hole cut into the center, and the web was always neatly stitched around the gap.

We were brought past and around the green house.  The boarded up windows of the stoic hospital remained dark, tiny sparks of red glinting when they caught the street lights just right.  All around were the chipped, broken remains of crystal overgrowth, having once encased the barely functional light posts.  There was a mingling creep of ivy and crystal, the former slithering from within windows, and the latter glistening from the cracks within the walls it had been climbing.

The reception doors, despite the still solid wired glass, had been curtained off with doctor's scrubs and labcoats.  Having to brush past them, the bodies (and watchful eyes) pushed in on all sides and ensured I would not move.  Beyond that first layer, there had been decorations of truly strange weight.

Many feathers, broken antler tips, and the dried bodies of insects that wouldn't fit in a hoof.  They had been hanging from fishing wire, the various bristly and weird items licking at all of us as we escorted through the second set of doors.

The lobby's terminals, though the husks remained on the half-circle desk, had been covered in the twirling scrawls as the tree had been.  Their backs had been hollowed out, the insides lit with by groups of fireflies that had been attracted to small glass dishes filled with an aromatic liquid.  Their monitors hung from the ceiling as shiny decor.  The chairs were covered in fur blankets and stuffed pouches, patterned in a way I only recognized from my then most recent experience- the black dotted fur of the deer.  I didn't have to think hard to discover where the hospital's tools had been used.

The things they had done to survive...

Though, they were doing alright for themselves, weren't they?  Not like Resilience had been.

From the tepid light of the barely functioning monitors, several more deer were inside, resting on more blankets or hospital pillows.  Patient trolleys were used as places for weapons, most of them rifles, and all of them rigged with silencers of either pre-war quality, or duct tape and plastic drinking bottles.  The ones that the then standing guards were using, though, had their barrels painted with, again, the weaving patterns that extended up to the mouth of each gun.  Most of them took up their arms, pushing from their seats to make sure we knew one thing- they weren't going to tolerate anything about us.

The deer with Miser and Quartz fanned out, though a buck remained close to each one.  I was kept imprisoned between three bodies, before one moved from in front of me, and took a stance near Sunglow.  The doe laid down in front of me, and Sunglow hopped onto her back.  She clutched at the adult's neck, keeping her head peering from between the white, long, furry ears.

Exposed to the lot of them, my companions included, the first question was asked by the doe.   Her voice was quiet enough that I had to strain to listen, yet could still not understand.  Sunglow flicked her ears attentively, and translated, loud enough that we could understand.  Courteous little doe...  “Why did you come here?”

“Night was coming.” I replied.  “We needed a place to sleep, or at least rest until morning.”

“Didn't you see the warnings?”  was the next question asked.

I grimaced.  “I did.  I can't say if my friends did, though.”

“Then why did you approach?  Especially during the long sleep?”

“I...  We didn't know that the paintings were warnings.  We didn't know anypony... Anyone was here.”

“Even with everything that was in your way?”

Quartz interrupted from behind.  “We've never seen anything like it- what were we supposed to think?”

“That some “pony” had the sense to organize the things that were right in front of you.” came a scowled reply, translated from my right.  “Being stupid is one thing, but being dangerous and stupid is something we cannot abide by.”

“We didn't know.” I said, only able to mirror Quartz's attempt at controlling the conversation's hemmorrage.

“So, it was ignorance?”

“Yes, until we found Sunglow.”

There was a collective quiet, where their language floated on whispers between several of them.  Sunglow tried to hide behind the white scalp of her “podium.”  “What did you think then?” came the next question.

“There were children with food and water-”  I shook my head.  Then, sat back, and gave a shrug.  “What were we supposed to think?”

“Mother” snorted from behind me.  “Easy pickings.” came the instant, simple answer, floated across Sunglows conversion.  “That's why you tried to steal her mind away, wasn't it?  To have some leverage in case of retribution.”  Sunglow was doing an excellent job with herself, and the direction of her fellow's words.  Though her eyes watered as she looked at me directly, her voice hadn't even cracked.

“That isn't what...” I had to calm myself.  I knew things could get very bad, very quickly, if I did so much as literally raise my voice.  “That wasn't my intent.  I didn't know what it did-” I grunted.  “Would do to her.”

“Ignorance again?”

“I didn't want to hurt her, okay?  The children all had food and water.  We had to keep going, but I needed proof they were there.  Without you-” I pointed toward the one holding Sunglow up. “Any of you adults up and moving, we thought they were alone.”  She reeled a moment, forcing Sunglow to clutch tighter, and climb back up from the inches she'd lost.  “We thought bringing the photograph to somepony more capable would bring help.”

“Then why take her?  Why leave the rest?”

“We didn't need her... Your food or water. We didn't have enough to feed all of them in travel.  Since I didn't know the picture wouldn't hurt her-”

“You are not arguing for yourself very well.”

“I took the picture as we were starting to leave.  We had to keep going, and we had enough for ourselves, but no more.” I lied about our supplies, mostly about myself.  “It's not like we had the urge to get more.”

“Keep going?” was next asked.

“Yes.  We're on the Long Trot south.”

All the red eyes in the room narrowed.  The din of complete silence, marked only by the sway of their ornamentation, was all that permeated the room.  I could hear the strain of my coat when I moved, to give a look toward the two other ponies behind me.  I could barely see them, and their eyes went from mine to give cautious looks to the angrily leering deer.

Sunglow grew confused. She started asking questions of the one beneath her, then turned up to try and breathily call the same inquiries to “mother.”  I looked back at her, and she whispered something back to quiet her.  Sunglow furrowed her brow and puffed her cheeks up, squaking a complaint in their tongue.  Several rolled their eyes to the words, and grumbled.  Then, the one holding her up leaned down toward me, close enough for me to taste black breath.  “Cris-tal?” she said, drawing the word along her teeth like a knife on flesh.

I didn't budge.  Whatever it meant to them, I was going to be honest.  “Yes.”

Sunglow went wide-eyed and stood on her podium's neck, blinking.  The doe, twice my height easily, squinted.  She said something, then, and Sunglow took a few surprised moments to speak.  “Southern trotters have passed us in many days and many ways.  Recently.  Why was it you that stopped?”

I sighed.  We wouldn't be going anywhere but a circle.  “To find a place to rest in the night.  We thought there might be medicine, too.”

“So you knew we had medicine, and wanted to take it.”

“We didn't know you were here.  We knew that there was an old hospital here.  Forgotten things from the old world.”  I shook my head for the final time.  “We didn't know anypony was living here.”

Sunglow relayed the message, and that was very nearly that.  A few hushed arguments came, Sunglow herself seeming to make the most significant.  She, “mother,” and several others were the most vocal.  Several began to handle their weapons, obviously dissatisfied with my plea; Sunglow was the only thing (and even in that, I can only guess why) which saved our flanks.  She was speaking a little story both to her mother and to the others-

She made some exaggerated motions, and finalized the monologue by holding up her hooves.  She kept them slightly apart and made a click noise with her tongue.  It her pantomime of a camera.

Her mother snorted, and took herself away from me to approach her daughter.  She tried to address Sunglow, but the little doe argued back.  Then, all the eyes fell back on me, and there was a hesitation.

“There is too much you do not know for us to console ourselves in killing you.”  Sunglow translated.  “So, we will teach you.  Then, soul-stealer, you will have no excuse for yourself should you ever return.”

[***]

I was led down a long hallway, darkened as it was by the windows and the night that had fallen.  The lights above had long been burnt out, or purposely broken, as walking on glass felt like a common theme.  Along the walls and floors there were flowers growing upon spindly stalks.  They were the predominant light in the halls, luminescent and pale green, within old bedpans that had been filled with soil from outside.  The rest was lit by winking fireflies that crawled along the walls, or floated through the air.  They illuminated cracked or cut pipes, to which had been adhered the gold of the homemade talismans.  The drips were caught in buckets, beakers, and vials, leaving many containers of perfectly clear water.

Things seemed to get more humid as I was forced to continue, and looking into the rooms, I was not a question of “if.”  They had been labs of some sort.  Sterile rooms, with desks and tables.  Old glass vials had been taken and filled with soil, single plants of all sorts growing from them.  Some were flowers, some were many leafed things that had buds or tiny fruits upon them.  The wet roots were visible from them, tended to what looked to be teenage children in every room we passed.  They stopped to watch me, alien as I was to them, and peered their heads out as we passed.  My escorts tried to scoot them back into their rooms, likely sending warnings in their tongue, but that stopped absolutely none of them.  The escorts gave up on trying, as Sunglow's ride continued onward toward the hall's end.

Rebar, dirt, concrete chunks, and plants coalesced into a jagged wall.  There was no cold; it's edges had been lined neatly by more bit-talismans.  More of them, I suspected, in the venture to it.  We stopped there, and Sunglow started to chat with her podium.  The doe sighed, and said something back.  Then, Sunglow pointed with a forehoof.  “That's some of the rubble from old world.” she said.  “That's where the story starts.”

“All right.” I said, indulging the kid.  “I'm listening.”

-*-

“We came to be here by the will of many ponies, long ago.  Things were said to move us from our  forests in the south, and we tried to argue that we deserved our place where we first had been.  The ponies would not listen, and they were strong with old weapons and with numbers.  So, we were forced to come here, and learn the ways of living in cold and with machines that the old ponies gave us.  So we did for a while, and we learned the way of machines that helped ponies and deer alike.  It was a nice time.”

It fell when the old world shrugged, and when the Heat On The Wind passed by our home.”

The podium turned, and Sunglow pointed at the wall.  I could make out some colors, and shapes, but nothing of significance.  One of my escorts realized my inability, and grew exasperated.  He drew a flower from the rubble, and nipped it's edge.  Several fireflies collected around it after a quick wave, and he took the natural torch to, what I discovered, was a picture.

It was a painting, much like the rest I'd seen on the billboards, but with simple shapes that were easy to discern.  Dark blotches with legs were the shape of deer, near square dots on what looked to be tables.  Rounded rectangles with small patterns, what I recognized as one of the diner's vending machines, were drawn with cracks.

“When the world shrugged, many of the machines that we had started to depend on died.  We could not fix the most important- the machines that could help others.   Even as we grew more confused, that's when the dark days came.”

I was ushered (shoved) over to the next wall, past a doorway.  Inside there was a paint-covered little buck, having stopped in broad swings of his brush on the walls. The entire inside had been colored in swirls and dots, within the center of which there had been place more dirt-filled vials.  Things had not yet started to grow, and he had been finishing the paintings on the walls with dye-covered hooves.

“The night persisted for many days when the earth shuddered.  It came with a hot wind that brushed the clouds aside.  Then, all was still, and the cloth of many colors in the sky all turned an ill green.  The clouds closed, the sky was lost to us, and the black snow began to fall in the dark...” The entire wall was black.  The deer were painted in tan, beneath green sways of paint.  Several were laying on their sides, peppered with green dots.  “The black snow came with many sicknesses we could not stop.  Many things died, including many of us.  While the snow was falling, and we were cowering in our old place of healing, some of us took to the first long sleep.  Those that did, started to go mad.”

I was turned to the opposing wall.  Some deer, silhouetted by guns and by spears, surrounded other similar figures in crimson circles.  “They woke up screaming of terrible things.  That something in their dreams showed them cities on fire.  They said they saw ponies turning to black air, becoming shadows on walls, and that they watched flesh melt on terrified faces.  Some said they saw only darkness, stretching forever, and heard nothing but weeping from all around.  They said that when the world had shrugged, it had ended, and we were supposed to end with it.  The ones that went mad refused to see anything but the dreams when they awoke, and we had to kill them to bring them peace.”

“We had to burn the dead.  Few volunteered to go outside and face the sickness in the air to do it, but it was done.  While the stench of their corpses filled the rooms of our largest home, this place we are in now, three ponies came.”  The next wall showed a box, in which many of the white forms were standing.  Some had the silhouette of guns, while others had spears.  They were surrounding three very odd forms- thick, mostly gray, and with colors that I recognized. Blue, magenta... The color of the old crystals in the magazines and pictures.  “They had skins of metal and crystal.  When they moved, their bodies hissed.  When they spoke, their voices boomed.  He said he was Father of the Crystal Ponies, and that he had come on their behalf to help us.”

My mind reeled.  I knew a few tales of what I was thinking, but they did not compare to this old legend.  Sureshot wasn't one to keep secrets in story time, though then, I had wondered if I had simply never believed he had.  The old king?  Shining Armor?  He survived?  I shook it off.  It had to be somepony only claiming it.  Why would he have survived?

“The Crystal Father was not afraid of the snow.  He was not afraid of the Dark Days.  He was not afraid of us.  He said that Princess Luna, queen of the night and of all things that would drive us to where we are, had taken perfect control of the crystal city.  As your world ended, she brought to the northern land a darkness that would last several days.  The Crystal Father said she did so to keep the Crystal Utopia alive, that the dark would hide it from a catastrophe.  But the city was too bright.  Like a jewel shining in the sun, it drew to it the mistakes that Luna had made, and that is what caused the world to shudder and the black snow to fall.”

“He said he knew of our plight that Luna had birthed, and taught us many things to ask for forgiveness.  He taught us how to make these-” Sunglow tapped the disc on her podium's head.  “He called it a dreamcatcher.  He said it would protect us from the things that came in our sleep to drive us wild.  He taught us how to make warmth from gold, the chips of greed from the old ponies.  He told us the darkness would wane, and so would the illness.  We would only need to persist for a short time longer.  Then he left, and said he would be back with more ways to survive what would come when the cloak of night lifted.”

“So we did what he said.  We waited.  Many days passed, and very little happened.  It was silent, but we feared the dangers outside.  It was then that a great monster came, something we only called The Hunger.”

I walked to the next wall of my own accord.  The image upon it, to my surprise, was familiar.

Fanged teeth.  Eyes.  They were placed in random places withing a large, black cloud, bearing down upon the deer in ebony thorns.  I listened, then, and very, very carefully.

“It took from us many old things with it's mouths.  Dangerous machines, black crystals, old world food and some of the ones starting to rot.  All of it was food to The Hunger.  It ate and ate and ate, and it did not stop.  Within days, what we had that could feed it was gone.  So, it started to eat us.  It came for the ones that tried to fight it, tearing them apart with teeth and swallowing each piece without tasting it.  We hid from The Hunger, praying it would not find us beyond the doors we had sealed, and starved in it's wake.  We listened without sleep for a great while, hoping to somehow hear The Hunger and be able to run from it.  Unable to stop it, we could only drink painful water from our hiding places.  We pricked ourselves with Radawee, the old world slime that made our heads hurt but took the pain from the water away.  When the hurt in the water was gone, we found our eyes had turned red and our coats white.  Our ears began to ache against the sound of our guns and our voices, so we grew as silent as the world outside had become, to listen, and to prepare.  Finally, the snow turned white again, the sky grew bright enough to see, and we could venture outside, beyond the reach of The Hunger.”

Was it still there?  Was that fucking thing still near them somewhere?  I started to breath harder, my eyes barely blinking.  I calmed myself with some level of logic.  If it was, it would have already said hello.  Though the thought did let me relax, to some degree, it did not give me peace.  I focused on the tale, instead.

“We found nothing.  As far as our eyes could see and our ears could hear, there was nothing.  It scared us to stay in the middle of the nothing, but the only thing that had ever tried to help us, the Crystal Father, had told us to wait.  So we continued to wait.  We started to grow thin once the food vanished, and the radawee was saved for children with the omens of the old sickness.  Then the Horses in White came, and we were forced to fight with our stomachs empty and our souls sour.”

“They came in small numbers at first.  Few of us understood how they talked- much like you.  When our talker-machines failed, we fought them and killed them, and took from them their loud weapons and their belongings.  Then more came, and we were forced to do the same again.  And again.  And again.  More and more came every time, and many of us were burned in the name of violence, of the Polesee that once roamed the old streets.”

“Then an army of the Horses In White came.  They stomped their hooves and yelled things.  They started to fire, and wounded us. They did not kill us.  They made us watch as they turned the old homes to rubble, dragged us through the streets, and picked the things that had only just started to grow around the great heart of the tree.  As they started to enter the biggest of our homes,” Sunglow gestured all around herself, and to the walls. “The Crystal Father, true to his word, returned.”

“He and his brothers shot the horses in white with light.  The horses in white fluttered away on the wind as ashes.  He slung glowing orbs at them, and they gurgled as their flesh and organs turned to muddy water and splattered from their bones.  The horses in white tried to strike back, but no harm came to the Crystal Father; light surrounded him, and everything that meant to harm him never pierced the shell.”

“The Crystal Father took up the untouched belongings of the horses in white, of which there were few.  All that was left of many of them were their guns, and bones, and many metal things like buckles and tins.  He and his brothers stayed to help heal what was left of us.  When that was done, and only when he was certain it was, the Crystal Father gave us what he had first left to find.  They were all sorts of things, which he said we were to keep safe.  They were seeds, and he told us they were of many plants that had died in the black snow when the world shuddered.”

“He had parchments with him that our old speakers turned to our voice.  We could read them then, and with them, knew how to best care for the new seeds in our own home.  We could grow these things with the warmth he taught us, using the minds and bodies he saved for us, and then keep both sustained with what we grew.  We were complete, and only if we failed in our charge would we be broken.”

By Celestia.  The things these deer had done to survive.  Even in doing what little I had, I wanted to apologize.  I wished I had only passed that place by.

“When he said he had to leave, we were mournful.  He said he was going to go south.  He promised that the Horses in White would not come back to us for some time, if ever again.  When we asked why the Crystal Father had done what he had, he told us that it was the will of the Tartarus, and that we would not understand.”

The will of Tartarus...

Even back then, the word carried weight to me.  Spoken through legends of those long dead, even then I knew.

“Though we wanted to express our gratitude, the crystal father was gone before we could thank him.  We have not seen him since, but we know he did go south.”

“How?  Does he contact you?”

“No.” Sunglow shook her head. “But the horses in white only ever came from the south, and ever since the Crystal Father departed, they have rarely returned.  When they do, they usually only talk. Usually.  That is how we know the Crystal Father made them stop attacking us- he must have spoken with them, or at least killed enough of them that they cannot come back to us, even now.”

Then why was Resilience seeing so many of them?  Especially in recent days?  I snorted.

I had so many more questions.  All it ever took to damn me in the Quiet Ones eyes, was to ask them.

[***]