Chapter 2: Empathy

“Crusaders look out for our own and any filly or colt what needs protectin.”

        Rock.  Rock.  Another rock.  Oh look, a dead tree.  Rock.  Rock.  I mentally catalogued everything I saw as I did lazy figure eights over our little caravan.  It was boring, and it was monotonous, but it helped pass the time a little quicker.  Dead brahmin.  Radroach.  Another rock.

        Paper Plate finally broke the silence.  “Y’ever actually think ‘bout what we’d do if we was attacked?”

        “Depends on how many are attackin’,” I said.

        “Um...  Three.”

        “You and yer brother would start running as fast as ya can with those carts, Inkblot would start shootin’, and I’d fly real fast past ‘em and kick ‘em in the head as I went by.”  I gave a little demonstration to Paper Plate on my part of the plan.

        “How ‘bout ten?”

        “Start cryin’.”

        “What?”

        “Yeah, jus’ ball up and start cryin’.  Maybe they’ll hear the noises and run the other way,” I said with a laugh.

        “Oh Buck you are so difficult sometimes,” Inkblot groaned from her position in the back of Paper Scroll’s cart.  “At least give a serious answer.”

        I thought about what we would actually do in that situation for a minute.  “Well... we’d ditch the carts, find a nice big rock to hide behind, and make them come after us.”

        “But we need this stuff to trade for food!”

        “We can always get new stuff,” I said, now hovering next to Plate.  “But we can’t get a new you.  More importantly, we can’t get a new me.  Yer life would be absolutely boring if I died.  Jus’ think about it.  Who would take my place if I were gone?”

        The light grey colt thought for a moment, then said, “Me!  I can be scary and fun and big and scary!”

        “Oh ya think so, huh?  Lemme see yer scary face.”

        The resulting combination squinting eyes and grinding teeth was far more hilarious than scary.  “Oooh, yer almost there.  Give it a growl.”

        “Grrrr.”

        “Louder!”  

        “GRRRRRRR!”

        “Meaner!”

        “GRRRRAAAWR!”

        “Yikes!” I shouted as I pulled my wings in and flopped to the ground.  “Now that was scary!”

        Plate smiled wide and picked up his pace.  Scroll and Inkblot shook their heads at me as they passed.  

        “You’re not supposed to encourage him, Tripod,” Scroll whispered.

        I got up and walked next to him.  “What, ya don’t remember being like that?”

        “Yeah, I do.”  He sighed.  “But you’re not there every night when he’s trying to be like you, jumping out of the shadows to scare me.”

        “Somepony’s gotta do it,” I said before jumping back into the air and returning to my figure eight pattern.

*****

        Megamart.  The market in which the majority of trade the Crusaders did took place.  The only real city I had been to before was Flank.  None of the Crusaders wanted to go to Flank, so Lily would bring me and a bit of our stockpile that Megamart wouldn’t accept whenever she had a delivery there.  At the first glance, Flank was much more impressive.

        The city was surrounded by a low wall and had a neon sign by the front entrance.  Kind of underwhelming, really.  I had been hoping for all the sights and sounds and colors I was used to in a city.  This was... boring.

        We got onto the road and started walking towards the large gate.  Remembering the “Rules of Flank” and the repeated advice Lily had given me before we left, I had Scroll help me hide my wings underneath my Crusader cloak.  Suppodedly, being a pegasus isn’t something you just want to advertise to everypony.  

One of the guards took an interest in us as we got closer.  “Entrance fee,” the unicorn mare said in monotone voice.

        I had seen Lily get out of entrance fees before, so I intended on doing my best impression of her negotiations.  “Yes, about that, we-”  

I was interrupted by another guard walking over and slapping the mare upside the head.  “Look at them.  They’re Crusaders, you idiot.  The Finders let them in for free.”  Well that sure made it easy!

The guard mare rubbed her head and looked at us coldly.  “Get in there,” she said as she kept the gate open for our carts.

Once we were past the gate and inside, I could get a second impression the city.  It wasn’t much better than the first impression.  Other than booths that had been set up for some merchants, the entire place was mostly organized junk.  The entire wasteland was junk, of course, but at least it was filled with interesting junk.  

The crowded walkways inside Megamart made it feel even smaller than it looked from the outside.  The fact that there were no tall buildings made it seem open and airy, but that did little to make up for the complete lack of fancy decorations.  

“Any o’ y’all ever been to Flank?” I asked as we slowly walked through the dirt paths.  Each of them shook their heads.  “Well, imagine this times five.  With lots more ponies.  And neon.  Lots and lots of neon.”

We continued making our way between the piles of scrap, doing our best to stay out of the way.  “So, anypony been here before?”

“I have,” Inkblot replied.

“Great!  Then where do we need to go?”

“We need to find Bottlecap first.  She’ll tell us where to drop off the goods and give us a slip of paper which will let us get food.”

“Hang on, they don’t even go through what we brought them before giving us food?”  I asked, suddenly confused.  How would they know the value of anything we brought unless they checked it out?

“It’s all part of the contract.  We bring in two cart-fulls of junk, we get such-and-such amount of food.  Doesn’t matter what the junk is and it doesn’t matter what the food is.  The stuff that goes in these carts is never very valuable.  If it is, Charity keeps it and it doesn’t go into the stockpile.  She’ll either sell it herself or give it to us to trade in a separate deal from these carts.”

“Wow...  I always jus’ thought we never found anything real special,” I said.

She levitated a funky piece of machinery out of her saddlebag.  “See this?  Charity said not to let it go for less than four hundred caps.”  I frowned and she smiled at my displeasure of not being trusted with valuable items.  “Oh, look, right up here is where she’ll be.”

We stopped right outside of where Inkblot had pointed and we let her go in alone to handle the discussions.  Plate, Scroll, and I stood around watching the ponies mingle.  Some of them seemed normal.  Others definitely looked like raiders, but they weren’t causing any trouble.  I soon found out why when I looked back towards the entrance gate and saw what Lily had called “Gun”.  It was massive and mounted to the to of the wall.  Apparently it had an AI in it that detected gunfire and shot whoever had pulled the trigger.  I pitied anyone who had to get shot by that thing.  The hole in their body would probably be the size of their head.

After just a minute, Inkblot came back out levitating a slip of paper and wearing a giant grin.  “Four-fifty,” she whispered in my ear as she passed.  She turned to the brothers.  “Alright, fellas, we need to drop these off around the corner.  The food is back towards the entrance, then we get to go shopping!”

Ten minutes later we were walking out towards the gate with bags of canned goods, eagerly awaiting our chance to spend more caps than we knew what to do with.

When we reached the end of the booths, Inkblot stopped and moved things around in her saddlebag.  “Okay, here’s fifty caps for each of you.  When you’re through that, come back to me and we’ll use the rest to get some more food.  Remember not to let anypony know how many caps you actually have.”

With that we split into two groups.  The brothers went to the far end of the line of merchants while Inkblot and I started at the gate.  The first booth was for guns and ammo.  Nothing I could use, but Inkblot picked up some nine millimeter ammo for her pistol.  

“So when is Lily going to let you have a gun,” Inkblot asked as we moved on down the line.  

“Prob’ly never,” I said with a grunt.

“You better start getting stronger, then.  A flying kick to the face won’t do too much without some muscle behind it.”

We were passing a clothing booth, so I reached out and grabbed a hat and flipped it onto my head.  “Or I could just be a real cowpony and learn to use two ropes at once.”  The merchant kept a close eye on me but said nothing.

“Where are you going to hold a second rope?”

“I, uh... I’ll think of somethin’.”  

As I was putting the hat back in its place, she spoke up again.  “Hang on.  Put that back on.  Yeah...  That looks good on you.”

The merchant saw her opening.  “Only thirty caps for that fine hat, sonny.”

On one hoof, I hated hats.  On the other, Inkblot said I looked good.  “I’ll pay five.”

“For a perfect rattan cowpony hat such as this one?  Twenty-five.”

“Ten.”

“Twenty and not a cap less.”

“Twelve.”

“Deal!  Pleasure doing business with you.”

I fished out twelve caps and placed them on his booth.  Maybe I’d grow to like it or something.  Doubtful, but I could always hope.  For now, though, Inkblot’s tiny smirk was worth the irritation.

*****

On the way home I had resumed my familiar flight pattern.  Inkblot had gotten the brothers interested in discussion about fabrics and colors and other nonsense, and I was doing my best to ignore them all.  

Rock.  Rock.  Really big rock.  Ugh, I wish I could carry both carts, then we’d be there already.  Another rock.  Tree.  There might actually be some leaves on that one.  Rock.  Rock.  So many rocks.  Smoke.  Dead brahmin, probably the same one fr-  Smoke?!

I stopped flying and hovered a little higher.  “Guys, guys, do ya see that?”

They stood still and looked around.  “See what?” Inkblot asked dismissively.

“That!” I said as I pointed to the smoke.

“It’s called a fire, Buck.”

“Yeah, but it looks like there’s something on fire.  A tent or something.”  I climbed a little higher to try and see what it was.  

“Ignore it, let’s go home.”

“No, no, I’m going to go check it out.  C’mon guys.”  

I flew ahead of the earth-bound ponies, happy to stop flying in circles.  I was a couple minutes ahead of the rest when I got there and set down in the middle of a small camp.  The smoke had been coming from one of the tents being on fire.  Only scraps of cloth were left of it now.  Three other tents still stood around a central campfire, which still had a pot of boiling something or other hanging over it.

I entered the closest tent and took a look around.  A bed.  That was it.  Seemed a little sparse even for a temporary campsite.  The second tent looked exactly the same inside.  

The third was different.  It had a bed, a little dresser, and what might’ve been a small rug of some sort, although it looked more like fur.  I noticed a pile of bags and a dark blanket in the back corner and moved to investigate.

One second I was lifting the blanket off of the bags and the next I was flying backwards while a high-pitched screech filled the air.  I landed upside down outside of the tent.  Hard.  Before I could get up or see anything, something heavy was on top of me and blocking most of my vision.  I could feel sharp claws digging into my sides.

“Stop!  Stop!  HEL-ugh...”  Whatever it was clamped down on my throat when I started yelling.  

Then, as suddenly I had been attacked, the creature was off of me.  Two grey blurs had passed and knocked my attacker to the side.  Inkblot ran up and helped me to my hooves.  By the time I was up and looking around, Scroll and Paper pinned down the... griffon!  It was a griffon!  I’d never even seen a griffon before.  I had heard stories about them, but I never thought I’d actually see one.

“Get off me you murderers!” he screamed from underneath the brothers.  At least, I think it was a he.  It sounded like a he.  

“Murderers?” Scroll asked, still struggling to keep the creature on the ground.  “Just who do you think we are?”

“Flash Fillies!”

I walked over and looked straight down in his... its... the griffon’s eyes.  “Do we look like fillies to you?”  

Inkblot coughed.

The griffon stopping struggling as hard as it had been.  “No...”  He paused and looked up at my wings.  “But you’re Enclave!  That’s just as bad!”

“Me?  Enclave?”  I laughed.  “I’ve never even seen another pegasus.  Heck, yer the first winged anything I’ve ever seen that wasn’t some bug.”

I wasn’t positive, but I was pretty sure the look on his face was confusion.  “Then... then let me go!”

“So you can go back to chokin’ me?  I don’t think so.  That hurt”

“I... I’m sorry about that.  I thought you were a Flash Filly.”

I sat down stopped staring at him.  “And what grudge could a griffon possibly have against a gang of ponies?”

“They finished killing my family just before you got here!”

“Oh...”  Even I had to admit it, that was a decent grudge.  “Why’d they do it?”

“How should I know?  My parents told me to hide in the corner and all I heard was shouting and something about Flash Fillies.”

I looked up at the brothers for a minute and just thought.  “Alright, let ‘em up.”

“Are ya crazy?” Plate shouted.  “He attacked you!”

“I’d attack him too if I thought he was a Flash Filly,” Scroll said as he stepped off the griffon.  “But I know better.   He ain’t pretty enough.”

I glared at Scroll while Plate stood up and moved behind me.  The griffon slowly got up onto his paws... er, claws... um... things at the end of his legs, and looked around.  

“So who are you and why are you down here?” I asked.

“I’m Kari,” he said while he tried to get all his feathers back in place.  “And we were headed to a new home.”

“Why weren’t you flying above the clouds?”  Inkblot asked.

“Are you kidding?  The Enclave and pegasi live in the clouds above here.  We can’t go through their territory.”  He looked around the campsite taking in all the destruction.  “Who are you?”

Scroll started the introductions and gave the usual speech about the Crusaders.  

“And you?” Kari said, pointing at me.

“I’m Tr- Buck, and I am not Enclave.  Though I think we already established that.”

“Buck, follow me for a second,” Inkblot said.  “Everyone else... tell each other funny stories or something.  Cheer Kari up.”

I walked close to her as she moved behind one of the still standing tents.  

“You need to ask him about that ‘new home’,” she said.  

“Why?  And why me?”

“You because... because.  And if no one is waiting for him at that new home, you know what we need to do.”

I rubbed my head with a wing, trying to think.  “What do we need to do?”

“We need to take him back to Chapel!” she whispered loudly.

“But he ain’t a pony, he’s a griffon.”

“So?”

“Uh...”  

“An orphan is an orphan, Buck,” she said after I was silent for a moment.

She had a good point.  Just because there were no griffons in the Crusaders didn’t mean there couldn’t be.  I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of a griffon staying in Chapel.  After a minute of my inability to come up with an argument, she shoved me back out from behind the tent.

Scroll had been trying to cheer Kari up by telling a story about his brother, but the griffon was just looking down at his talons.  Inkblot shot me a look when the story finished.

“So, Kari, is there anypony... er, anybody waiting for you at your new home?”

He hesitated.  “No... why?”

I sighed and Inkblot kicked me in the side.  “Well, do you want to come home with us?”

        He looked up.  “What are you talking about?”

        “I’m talking about coming back to Chapel and joining the Crusaders.  Scroll told you about us.  All orphaned fillies and colts.  Guess we could add... uh...” I looked at Inkblot.  “What-”

        “Cubs, Buck.”

        “-add cubs to the list,” I said, finishing with a smile.

        “I... um... I don’t...” he stammered.

        “How about this,” Inkblot said, “Just come back with us, you’ll have a safe place to sleep, and you can go wherever from there.”

        “You guys would do that?  For me?” Kari asked.  The other three nodded their heads while I just rubbed my neck.  “A bed away from radscorpions might be nice...”

        “How much stuff do you have to bring?” Inkblot asked, clearly hoping it wasn’t much.  

        “I, well, none of it is mine.  It all belongs to my parents,” he said, looking slowly around at the various tents.

        Scroll stepped forward and spoke softly.  “I know it ain’t nice to think about, but they... they don’t exactly need it anymore.”  Kari physically recoiled at the mention of salvaging what was left of his family’s belongings, but he stepped aside and allowed us to go through his things.  Plate and Inkblot tossed anything that might be useful into the carts.

        “That’s everything,” Scroll said after he had made the final deposit into his cart.  

        “Good,” I said with a smile.  “If we hurry, we can still make it with some daylight to spare.”

        In an attempt to get Kari’s mind off of his family, I flew side by side with him all the way back to Chapel.  He didn’t talk much, or at all, really, but I hoped flying would make him feel better.  It always helped me.  That and rain.  Something about being clean with air under your wings felt really good.

        When we reached the half-way mark, I decided to fill some of the silence with the small radio I kept in my bags.

        “...and she doesn’t look like she’s going to be stopping any time soon.  So here’s a big thank you from DJ Pon3 to the Security Mare.  Looking forward to see what law and order you bring down next.  Now for the sweet, sweet sounds of Swing with In the Shadow of the Valley.”

        “Who was that?” Kari asked, speaking for the first time since we had left the campsite.

        “DJ Pon3.  Ya mean ya’ve never heard him before?” I said in disbelief.

        “We don’t get your stations above the clouds.”

        “Station,” I corrected.

        “Huh?”

        “Not stations.  Station.  There’s just one.”

        “You’re kidding...” he said.  I shook my head.  “Just one station...  I really am in the middle of nowhere.”

*****

When we got there, the four ponies went our separate ways to hand out the gifts we had gotten at Megamart.  Kari decided to stay with me and take a little tour of Chapel as we went.  Our first stop was to see Sunny Sea, but I took the scenic route and showed him around the buildings first.  

        “And this,” I said as we came up to the storage building, “is all mine.”

        “The whole building is yours?” he asked.

        “Well... no.  But I’m in charge of everything inside of it.”  I opened the door and started to go inside.  “C’mon, I’ll show you all the junk in here.”

        He followed me inside and left the door open for light.  

        “It’s a little emptier since we just dropped off two carts at Megamart, but there’s still a good amount of stuff in here.”

        Kari looked around at the walls and floor, taking in all the various items.  “So what is it all?”

        “It’s everything - well, almost everything - the Crusaders scavenge.  We find it and take it to Charity.  Charity sorts it and gives it to me.  I store it and keep track of it.”  I pointed at a blackboard near the door.  “When stuff is taken out and I’m not around, it’s all marked up on that.  Then when I’m back I update the ledger over there,” I said, pointing now at a little desk in the middle of the wall.  “Electronics in the back, metals on the left side, ammo on the right, everything else in the middle.”

        “Ammo, but no guns?” he asked.

        “Can’t keep the ammo and the guns in the same place,” I said with a smile.  “The guns are hidden everywhere around here, along with some extra ammo.”

        “Won’t that take forever to find if you’re attacked?”

        “Yeah, but if we’re attacked they’ll go for the buildings first.  If all the guns are in the storage building, all we’ll have left are the guns we carry.  And only half of us actually carry guns.”

        “I thought you said this place was safe?”

        I laughed and started walking back outside.  “It is.  Ain’t no raiders anywhere around here, and there’s nothing of value for them to take if there were.  Most dangerous thing you’ll find close by are bloatsprites.  Maybe a radroach or two.”

        Kari shook his head and followed me.  When we got to the post office, I told him about Charity and how she runs it like a store.  When I was done explaining, I flew up to the roof and looked down at him.

        “Come up here for a minute,” I said.

        I noticed he was a lot less agile than I was when he flew up to the roof.

        “Whoa, what’s up with this?” he asked once he had landed.

        “Like it?”

        “What is it?”

        “It’s where I sleep!  It’s supposed to be a nest.”

        The griffon looked over the roof and all my things scattered around it.  “But... why?”

        “Somepony found a book a couple years ago.  When Inkblot read it, she saw it had a big section about birds, trees, and nests.  We figured that since birds had wings and I had wings, it made sense for me to have a nest.”  I tossed my hat off and settled into my bed as I finished and looked up at Kari.  “It’s really comfy.”

        “Ooookay,” he said as he looked out at Chapel.

        “So...”  The silence had started to become a bit awkward.  “That thing you did back there... on my neck?”                

        He looked back at me.  “Oh.  Sorry about that.  Everyone in my family is a hunter... were hunters.”  That explained the rug in one of the tents.  “We... use our beaks to make sure the prey can’t alert anything else that might be around.”  And that explained the slight pain I still felt around my throat.

        “That’s nice.”

        “You really live up here?” he asked, looking again at my nest made out of makeshift materials.  

        “Mostly.  Everything I don’t want outside is in my sister’s tent, but I usually sleep up here.  Speakin’ of... Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

        “With you?”

        “Sure, why not?  It’s up off the ground and there’s no stairs.  You can’t get any safer than this.”

        He slowly nodded.  “I guess that would be fine.”

“Don’t tell Charity, though,” I said.  Kari chuckled.  “No, I’m serious.  She’d kill me.  First she’d charge me rent, then she’d make me pay extra because it’s so messy.  After that she’d charge even more for letting you stay here.  Then, when my sister couldn’t pay it, she’d chain my legs, tie my wings, and toss me in the post office basement.”  By the time I finished, Kari had sat down because he was laughing so hard.  “I’m not joking!”  That only made him fall over on his side and continue laughing.  “It’s not funny!”

        “What’s not funny?!” a voice called out from below.

        I peered over the edge of the roof at the teal unicorn on the ground.  

        “Hey Sunny.  Somebody doesn’t think Charity would lock me up in her basement.”

        Sunny smiled.  “Charity would lock you up anywhere if it meant you’d stop getting on her roof.”

        I turned to Kari.  “See?  I didn’t even pay her to say that.  Yet.”  He just shook his head.

        “So where’s my gift?” Sunny yelled.

        “Who told you anything about a gift?!”

        “Silly Tripod, you know I can’t reveal my sources.”

        “Fine.  I’ll be right down with it.”

        Kari slowly stopped laughing and looked up at me.  “Tripod?  Really?  You let her call you that?”

        “Yeah,” I said while getting Sunny’s gift out of my saddlebag.  “Most of the younger ones do.  Why?”

        “Isn’t it a bit insulting?”

        “Nope,” I said around the gift in my mouth before leaping off the building.

        “There ya go, Sunny,” I said after dropping the gift in her bag.  She looked at it and smiled.  “Well aren’t ya gonna open it?”

        “Later.  When there’s nothing else to do.  Let’s take a walk.”

        The look in her golden eyes said we should definitely take a walk.  I turned back to the building.  “Hey!  Kari!  You go ahead and stay there for a bit.  I’ve got to go do a thing.  I’ll be back soon.”

        “See ya,” came the reply.

        Sunny had already started walking and I ran to catch up.  “What’s going on?”

        “So,” she said, “are Kari and this ‘somebody’ the same pony?”

        “Same griffon, yes.”

        “Griffon?” she exclaimed.  

        I proceeded to give her all the details I knew about Kari, which wasn’t really all that much.  

        “How’s he taking it?” she asked.

        “Just fine.  Too fine.  I don’t think he’s realized they’re actually gone yet.”

“That sucks.”  She paused for a moment.  “It’s a bit funny, though.”

“Whaddya mean ‘funny’?  His family just died.”

“Not that.  And not laugh funny.  Ironic funny.  We lose a Crusader and gain a Crusader in the same day,” she said slowly.

        “Lose a Crusader?”

        She stopped and turned to look at me.  “Scoodle’s dead, Tri.”

        I laughed.  “That’s a good one.  ‘Scoodle’s dead.’”

        “I’m serious.”

        “You can’t be.  She isn’t stupid enough to get herself killed up there.  Beat up?  Hurt?  Maybe even captured.  But if she was captured she’d find a way out, and there is no way she could’ve gotten herself killed.”

        “They went through the Boneyard,” she said.  “Ghouls woke up.  Killed her.”

        “That... no.  She knows to not touch anything in the Boneyard.”

        “Look, I’m not sure how it happened.  I just know it happened.  Her team’s too upset right now to get much more out of them.  They just came in a couple hours ago and they’re still freaking out.”

        Scoodle was one of the oldest fillies in Chapel.  I had gotten to know her over time, but I had never really become friends with her or even talked to her on a regular basis.  The fillies looked up at her like a role model, though.  “This is going to be a nightmare for the fillies.”

        “I know.”

        “So... who’s going to be causing trouble?” I asked her.

        “About the new griffon in town or about filling in the gap Scoodle has left?” she said, starting to walk again, her voice resuming a lessened form of professionalism.

        “Well, both.”

        “Cherry, Adagio, and Treble won’t like Kari, but I’m not sure how far they’d go with it.  Some of their favorite books are the ones with the pony-eating griffons from back during the war.  Charity won’t like it at first either, but make sure he isn’t lazy and she’ll warm right up - well, as much as she warms up to anyone,” she said with a glance back at the post office.  “Melody is the top candidate to take Scoodle’s place.  Spark is a bit older, but she’s just so new... That’ll be a fun situation to sit back and watch.”

        “What about that one filly from last night?  The one with the beer.”

        Sunny giggled.  “She won’t care about either one of those.  If it bugs you though, then she’s all over it.”  Great.  That was wonderful.  Just wonderful.  Somepony trying to get on my nerves was just what I needed.  At least I had Sunny around to make sure she never actually found out what would really make me mad.

        I looked at her and shook my head.  “How do you do that?”

        “Do what?”

        “Know all that.”

        “Because I actually go out and talk to everypony.  I don’t just stick around the young ones and make funny faces all day long.”  She stuck her tongue out at me as she ran off.

        I sighed.  Fillies. 

*****

        Even though I had spent half of the day with Kari, we had always been busy.  It wasn’t until now, now that it was getting darker and Chapel was going to sleep, that I was able to get a good look at him.  He was slightly bigger and taller than me, and a lot more muscular.  I guessed it was from...  Actually, I had no idea.  What could you possibly hunt that would give you those muscles?  Radroaches and brahmin were pretty easy to kill.  Radscorpions would be tough, but who in their right mind would go look for one of those?  

Ponies are probably hard to hunt.  Wait, no.  No.  Those are just stories from a book written during the war.  Two hundred year old fairy tales.  

I looked back at him after shoving those thoughts back out of my mind.  He seemed peaceful while he laid there at the far edge of the roof, head between his talons, looking out at the graveyard beyond the chapel.

        Back in my nest curled up and ready for sleep after a long day.  The clouds were all manner of oranges and pinks, with a bit of green being added into the mix if you looked towards the Core of Hoofington.  I listened to the sounds of Crusaders quietly settling into their tents and hoped that all the Crusaders away from home had found peaceful spots to stay for the night.

Just as I was rolling over and ready to try going to sleep, I heard soft sniffling.  Looking back across the roof, I saw the erratic movements of Kari's chest.  I threw the idea of rest out of my mind and walked over to him.

        “They’re dead.  They’re all dead,” he whispered through tears.

        “I know.  I’m sorry,” I said as I put my head on his neck and laid down next to him.  “What happened?”

        He was silent for several minutes.  Finally he said, “We had been flying all day long.  We were just going to put down for some dinner and a nap.  That’s all.  Dad got a fire started and Mom had put some food in a pot to cook.  My sisters were setting up the tents and I was getting out the beds.  Right before the food was done, we see this little cloud of dust off on the horizon.  Everybody just assumed it was from wind or something.  When it got closer, we could hear them yelling.  Screaming at someone... or something.  

        “My parents told me to hide in one of the tents and not to come out until they came and got me.  And so... I did.  I... I hid there.  I hid there while they were killed.  I didn’t do a thing.  I just hid...  All... all we wanted was dinner and a nap...”

        I had never learned what had happened to my parents.  Even in my oldest memories they were already dead.  Lily and Priest had insisted that it was better for me not to know.  They said that no one should have to experience something like that, and if you could avoid it, then you should.  It was times like this when I disagreed.  I had no idea what it felt like to lose someone so close.  I had no idea how to help or what to do.  As the last hint of light left the sky, I moved so that I was up against his entire side.  It was the least I could do, but it was all I could do.

-------------------------

Footnote: Level up!

New Perk: Foal at Heart.  You love being around children, and they love being around you.  Older ponies just don’t get it.

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