I knew my way out of the village, but this is the farthest I’d been outside of it, I didn’t know where to go from here. I barely had any idea where I was now!

The walk was long and desolate, the air was humid and muggy, neither of us spoke a word, I was angered at her; it was because of her I had to leave, go somewhere I had no idea about.

“My name is Raining Waterfall, what’s yours?”

I ignored her, all my regrets and fears were flooding to me at once, but I stopped to take a deep breath and calmed down.

The winged pony seemed to sense my anger and spoke softly: “You didn’t have to come with me you know; you didn’t even have to help me, I coulda went my own way and been out of your mane”

I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her and began screaming in my native tongue.

“You crashed into tribe, you tainted hallowed ground, do you know what my tribe does to outsiders?!”

I was surprised by how many words I was using, as I said, normally my speaking was kept to a minimum.

My anger was getting to me, even though it wasn’t her fault. She stayed silent and stared at me; I had forgotten she didn’t know my language.

I struggled to find words she understood “Outsiders… Not welcome in tribe… cast into river, after death”

She looked just a little surprised, though that wasn’t to be unexpected; I had heard from the caravans that the outside wasteland was even more brutal than that. I was hoping they were wrong.

We walked for a long way, not speaking to one another, only stopping every so often to dodge a radscorpion or two.

“Village near, rest?” I finally spoke softly. The words sounded… unusual, coming from me. I could hear the tribal accent still within my voice, even though it wasn’t my language.

She looked at a green glowing thing on her fore hoof “There’s a small settlement to the north, called Hayditch. Should be ponies that are fairly friendly there”

“Fairly?” I didn’t understand the concept of ‘fairly’ friendly.

She hit a few buttons and then it went dark. “The town has been unresponsive to the trade caravans that tried to go there, it coulda have been overrun by raiders, or they could have moved on, perhaps they all killed each other”

That I did not like, but it was our only option so we moved north.

I eyed the metal pieces on her sides disdainfully, they looked quite heavy, and my training taught speed and stealth. You couldn’t move fast with something like that. “Weapons?”

“Yes, it’s called a battle saddle, I take it you’ve never seen one? It’s my weapon, don’t touch”

I raised my hooves and took a few jabs in the air then thumped my chest proudly “My weapons, you don’t touch” She smirked.

We walked for a while more; she occasionally stretched her wings out with a wince. Finally she must have gotten the courage to talk to me more.

“You speak in a language very similar to Zebra, so how is it you know my language?”

I stopped and smiled without humor. “Taught to understand outside language, other tribe and not, in case of war. Taught to read and write to”

She nodded slowly, “So you can understand my language, but you can’t speak it that well?” I gave her a single nod back, refusing to comment more.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The town sure looked deserted as we neared it; there was nopony in site, friendly or otherwise.

“Keep your eyes open” She pointed ahead and I nodded.

I crouched and moved, looking at buildings and smelling the stench of blood in the air. It was quiet, very quiet… until…

I saw a colt take off towards us at high speeds and the winged mare immediately pointed the metal tubes down at him.

“Hold!” I screamed at her, jumping in the path of her battle saddle.

The foal fell to the ground sobbing at my hooves.

“THEY’RE GONNA GET ME!!!” he shrieked.

“They?” the mare said from behind me.

He turned to look behind him and screamed in absolute terror, quickly followed by my companions very graphic cursing and loud booming noises.

“Fucking shit eating Luna-damned assholes!” I saw fire erupt from her weapon and the creature explode in a pile of gore.

I was stunned by the site before me, not just when it exploded, but how quick it happened, how deafening the sound was, and lastly what the creature was!

Then I saw more, at least ten or fifteen of them, they were rotting and ghastly, but they were definitely ponies or former ponies… or…

My thoughts were cut short with more deafening bangs. She was killing them one by one, but they seemed to keep coming!

The booms stopped and I heard a clicking followed by even more cursing.

“Cover me!”

I looked up, pushed the still sobbing colt behind me and charged.

I didn’t understand what she meant by covering her, but she had stopped killing so it was my turn.

My skills were based on evasion and quick powerful attacks, armed with only my hooves or a blade. But I didn’t have a blade.

My movements were silent, my hoof-jabs quick and accurate, one by one, at least seven of those… horrible creatures fell to the ground.

I heard a voice scream to get down and I dropped like a stone as the mare began killing again.

Blood and brains peppered my coat. The sounds stopped and my ears rang, but they were all dead.

The foal was sniffling and trying to stop crying. He looked to be the only one who had survived, as now I saw pieces of other ponies lying near the houses, half eaten by the looks.

I vomited hard and fell to the ground, my vision obscured by blood.

“What the fuck were those things?!” She panted and kicked some of the bodies.

“Plehh” I spit the nastiness out as she was looking over the ones I had taken down.

“They look like they’re already dead… but they’re breathing…” She aimed down at them as I shook my head hard… The elders never told us about these horrors…

“I do not know, they are past death, but alive” I pointed to one of the ones I had taken down. “Paralyzed, you kill” She stared at me for a moment, then stomped the heads in on each of the paralyzed ones.

“Little one, I am sorry” The colt didn’t speak, he wasn’t even crying anymore. Just staring at the ground…

“I’m too tired to cry… and now I have nowhere to live…” He looked up at me with big eyes.

I winced, I knew we couldn’t take this little one with us, but we couldn’t leave him here either.

“Do you know of any relatives anywhere else?” My companion spoke up.

The colt thought for a brief moment, “My aunt lives in Neighberry, but that’s a long way from here, I wouldn’t make it”

I looked to my companion, “Neighberry?”

"Raining looked down at the contraption on her foreleg, and held it up to me once she found the town. She quickly pointed out the town for me and I saw it wasn't to far away, but as I looked up at the sky i saw it was starting to get dark.

"We're here, Neighberry is over here. Roughly a four hour walk. To get there we'd have to go into Ghastly Gorge. A bunch of ponies built a settlement over there, right beside the river. We wouldn't be able to make it there before nightfall though."

She turned to face me and looked right into my eye's. "We can't take him though. Even if we managed to make it there before nightfall we would have to be running most of the time and I don't think that he would even be able to stand up for a few minutes at the moment."

I opened my mouth to protest but she continued hoping to drive the point home.

"Even if you carried him. We would run into at least, at a minimum a few dangerous ponies or creatures and with you outta the fight carrying him it would be up to me to defend you as well as myself and I would probably run out of ammo for before we got there."

I opened my mouth to talk again, but she placed her hoof over my mouth and kept talking.

"Please, just listen to me." She lowered her hoof and stared into my eye's. "Please." She pleaded.

“Just leave him; he’ll be dead within a few weeks regardless of where we take him”

“You have debt” I growled at her. She glared at me and I shifted my stance.

Finally she sighed and shook her head sadly.

“I saw tracks a little ways back, probably a trade goes by here”

I knew of trains, I had heard going through the McIntosh Hills and had read books of such things. Big machine made up of many pieces of connected metal, moving on tracks at high speed.

“It’s only a short distance back the way we came, we can go there and wait if you want"

We agreed and the colt looked ecstatic to be leaving this place. I couldn’t blame him, not only did bad things happen, but there was really nothing left for him here.

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We galloped towards the train, the colt up on my back as I sped even faster than my winged companion. I could hear it coming before I even saw it, it was just pulling in as we came upon it.

“Where ya headed?” a stallion hung his head out the front, eyeing us.

“Neighberry, this colt has family there, Hayditch is dead”

The old stallion shook his head sadly and held out a hoof. “Twenty caps a head” my companion dug into her bags and then handed him a pile of little round metal pieces. The stallion motioned for us to climb on.

The train looked much the same inside as out. Rusted and faded, but they had cushioned, or rather slightly cushioned seats for all of us. And even a few beds.

Other ponies on the train paid no mind to us and soon the big metal beast was moving.

I had a grin as big as the colt’s, this day may have been hell to start, but I was getting to ride a train! Something I’d always wanted to do and that no other pony from my tribe would probably ever do!

As I grinned at my winged companion and then at the colt, for the first time in my life, I was happy to be out of the tribe!

Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk Added: Child At Heart - You have a unique childlike state that possibly comes from your naitivity. Oh also kids like you a lot more.

Author's Note

First town, First fight, he's a Pacifist?!
I know I'm not using names much, there is a reason for that.
Tell me what you think, if you see any errors. Please tell me.