Fallout Equestria: A Horse With No Name

I stood on a small island in the center of a large misty lake. Green grass grew beneath my hooves, and light clouds shielded me from the sun’s unrelenting rays of heat.

“I never did like the sun.” I thought to myself. “Always thought it was too hot.”

As much as I wanted this place to be real, I knew it wasn’t. Despite the fact that living grass, clean lakes, and cool days where a thing of the past, I had had this dream before. I hadn’t visited this dream scape in many years, so I was bound to return eventually.

As expected, the fantasy proceeded as it usually did. I felt the air around me grow humid and eventually turn an uncomfortably hot temperature. The clouds in the sky evaporated and the suns potency increased. The searing heat radiated throughout my fantasy realm, killing the luscious vegetation and eating up the lake. As the water level decreased I saw the tips of several hooves rise to the surface. There were eight pairs in all, each shining a pearly white. It wasn’t until the water lowered a few inches more that I noticed that they weren’t naturally white. They were bones, polished to a shine by the constant exposure to the lake’s water.

The lake’s level decreased even further exposing barren forelegs, empty skulls, and rib cages. Once the water had completely dried up, I could see the skeletons completely. Their empty eye sockets gazing up to the sky above, hooves reaching out to grab something that wasn’t there. I followed the corpses’ gaze to the heavens that hung above us. I squinted my eyes to see past the unrelenting light of the sun, nearly blinding myself in the process.

It took me a second to lock onto what the dead saw. It was the silhouettes of two large alicorns. Their eyes were outlined in white, gazing down at the dying foliage and empty lake. I could see the pity in their eyes, as if the destruction of such a lovely place personally effected them. Their intense look shifted from the dead land to the air that hung over them. Their pallid eyes targeting something they hadn’t noticed before.

I traced their line of sight to a tiny black spec high in the sky. It was hard to see at first, but the longer I stared, the more vivid it became. It wasn’t until I began to make out it’s specific features that I realized the unidentified object was falling to earth. I just stood there and stared as it drew closer and closer to the ground.

Time slowed to a crawl as the plummeting object reached eye level, and I was able to see it for what it was. It was revealed to be the mare from the boxcar. The same pony I had left pinned beneath a fallen beam, wallowing in the blood of a dozen dead slaves. Her eyes opened and met mine, sending an unfamiliar chill down my spine. Having had this dream several times before, I knew that something was different.

Time began to speed up, returning to it’s normal way of passing. As it did, the lake instantly refilled itself, creating a cushion of liquid for the falling mare. She hit the surface of the pond with a loud splash, and sank to the bottom. She remained submerged for a while, much longer than any other pony had stayed bellow.

The mare resurfaced a moment later, screaming in agony as the fluid around her began to eat away at her skin. She thrashed and flailed about, looking for an escape from the acidic pond that was slowly dissolving her.

“Help me!” She screamed through melting lips. The mare shot out her hoof and grabbed hold of the little island I stood on. Before I could react, she reached her second hoof forward and grabbed hold of my foreleg. “Please, just pull me up!”

I felt real pain as the acid from her body splashed onto mine. It burnt like shrapnel from a grenade, except it burrowed twice as deep. I tried to kick her off me, but she wasn’t able to let go. Her flesh had melted and mixed with mine, and no amount of pulling was going to get her off. I made a desperate move to grab the knife strapped to my waist, but ended up tripping over my own legs. I fell head first into the acidic pond and sank to the very bottom.

I expected pain, but found none. The water reacted differently to me. Biting me with it’s natural chill instead of the melting pain I had expected. Cautiously, I opened my eyes. It turned out that I could see perfectly fine beneath the water. I dare to proclaim that my sight had improved! I could make out every little detail beneath the waves. It was almost as if I was seeing things through a brand new pair of eyes.

Before I could investigate further, I felt something embrace me from behind. Turning to see what it was, I was surprised to see that it was the mare. Her body had been restored completely, skin and all. She wore a happy grin, and her eyes beamed with happiness.

“Thank you.” she whispered in my ear.

“For what?”

“Thank you.” she repeated. I made to ask her again what she was thanking me for, but she had vanished. I scoured the surrounding area for her, but found no trace. I resurfaced from the water a moment later, greedily sucking in a fresh mouthful of air.

“Hello?” I shouted. “Are you there?”

“Thank you.” I heard somepony whisper off to my right, or was it my left?

“Thank you.” whispered another voice. I didn’t realize until later that it wasn’t a series of voices from different locations that I was hearing, but a single voice echoing from every direction.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

The dream ended there, and I was sent back to my harsh reality. Apparently I had made it back to the train wreck and taken refuge in one of the boxcars. I must’ve been very tired since I didn’t even remember falling asleep.

“What a dream.” I thought aloud. “It doesn’t usually work out that way.” As I said before, I’d had the dream in the past. Thing is, the fantasy had gone wrong this time around. Minor details changed depending on what I had done to trigger the dream, specifically, who I had recently killed. Though, nothing this drastic had ever happened before.

I was always standing on an island surrounded by water and healthy plants, something that resembled me. Everything always died, and the lake drained every time to reveal the skeletons of the dead. The eight corpses resembling the eight ponies I had killed in my lifetime. Then the skies opened up to reveal the silhouettes of the two alicorns who would sadly gaze upon the dead land, the dying me. I assumed that they were the two princesses who ruled Equestria before the war, weeping over the loss of a beloved subject. After that, a pony would fall from the sky and land in a lake filled with burning acid. The pony being whoever I had just killed, the lake resembling me committing the volatile act of murder. They would then dissolve into nothing more than skin and bone, permanently sinking to the bottom of the lake. Their skeletons would remain there, forever reaching out for something to pull them out of the burning lake.

As I had told you before, the dream had gone differently this time around. Instead of drowning in a volatile pond like all the others, the mare had resurfaced and fought her way to shore. I was then dragged into the water, but somehow managed to survive. Instead of dying, I was healed. Finally, the mare found me, embraced me, and thanked me for something I couldn’t remember doing. I had no idea what any of it meant, and thinking deeply on it only served to befuddle me even more.

“Ok, start from the beginning. She didn’t just die like everypony else, maybe that’s because I didn’t actually ‘kill’ her. I just left her in the boxcar, and she may have died as a result of that.” I was getting somewhere with all this. I had figured the first part out, now I just needed to work off of that. “I need some fresh air.”

Walking always helped to clear my head. When I was alone and only had my thoughts to accompany me was when I was most efficient.

“Perhaps her struggle to get out of the lake resembled her clinging to life and slowly dying. Seems like the logical reason since I didn’t kill her directly. Or maybe it had something to do with her begging me to help. She was grasping at straws in an attempt to save herself.”

I went on like this for some time until a haphazard notion crossed my mind. Building off of what I had said earlier about the mare clinging to life. What if she was still fighting for survival, what if she was still alive? I don’t think that’s what my dream was trying to tell me, I’m not a psychic after all. Regardless, it still gave me the inclination to go back to where I had left her and check.

I trotted to the overturned slave car at the rear of the train. With caution, I leaned my head inside the dark cart to see if I could hear anything that would tell me whether the mare was dead or alive. Try as I might, I couldn’t hear a peep.

“This doesn’t bode well for my prediction.” I thought aloud. Since I had no source of light, I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to feel around inside the pitch black interior of the boxcar. The absence of sound didn’t work in my favor, as I was now forced to stumble around in the dark. With some caution in my step, I stalked forward into the shadowy caboose. I managed to avoid tripping over any loose wreckage as I proceeded to the back, and I was also lucky enough to steer clear from any shattered glass that would’ve rewarded me with more unwanted wounds.

When I reached the rear of the train car, I had some trouble finding the spot where I had last seen the brown mare. Feeling around with my hooves yielded a few splinters, but I eventually found what I was looking for. I didn’t know it was her at first, but after I checked her pulse and saw that she was still breathing I knew I had found the equine I was looking for.

Her breathing was shallow, and the heartbeat I had felt was a weak one. Gently, I nudged her head. When that did nothing to wake her, I tried again. This time, with a little more force. The sharp clip from my hoof jolted the mare awake. She tried to stand to confront me, but abandoned the task once she remembered that she was trapped beneath a pile of rubble.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Who was that?”

“It’s me.” I replied. I couldn’t see the expression on her face, but I assumed it was one of disappointment.

“I remember your voice. You’re that stallion from that slaving post, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. And I assume you are the mare I saw earlier, the one who refused to get in line?”

“Yeah that was me.” She answered. “Are you the same one who left me trapped here a few days ago? I thought it was you when I saw your face in the light, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“You’re right, that was also me. I left you here because I didn’t have enough water to share, its nothing personal.”

“Of course it wasn’t. It’s not like you’d care what would happen to a random slave.” she snidely retorted.

“I agree with you to a certain extent, but there must be some reason I came back here.”

“If there is a reason, I hope it is to help me out of here. Unless you just want to point and laugh while I die from dehydration.” I noticed a hint of confidence in her voice, as if this little conversation was shifting in her favor.

“You talk as if you are in a position to barter. Why is that, what do you have to offer me in exchange for your life?”

“There’s an oasis not far from here. It has a fresh water, living trees, and some hidden supply caches full of weapons and munitions. From there you have a fairly straight path to nearly any and all NCR settlements. Just help me out from under here, and I show you the way.”

“That’s quite a generous offer, but I could just as easily torture the information out of you and put a bullet in your head once I’m done. I only came back here on the hunch that I hadn’t finished you off properly.”

“First off, I’ve been conditioned to deal with physical interrogation. I dare you to try and beat the information out of me, I’m curious to see how hard you can throw a punch. Secondly, I know that there’s more than one reason why you came back here. For now, lets just focus on the biggest one. That being your original plan of survival didn’t quite work out the way you had planned, and in an act of desperation you came back here.”

This mare was quite a surprise to me. She managed to put on a ‘tough-guy’ act, despite going several days without food or water, and start negotiating for her freedom. To be honest, the deal she was trying to sell seemed fair. In exchange for her life, she would lead me to a fresh water source within traveling distance from here and several NCR settlements. It almost seemed too good to be true….

“How can I be sure your telling me the truth? What if this is just some ploy to get me killed, how can I be sure that this ‘oasis’ even exists? You could just as easily lead me into the middle of nowhere and leave me to die!”

“You have my word.” She responded. “And lets not forget that my life is tied to yours. Leading you out into the desert would mean my death as well as yours. If I was so hell bent on getting you killed, I would have just given you a set of false directions and let you shoot me here. I want to live just as bad as you!” I considered what she had just said for a few moments. Everything seemed to add up correctly. She was willing to perform this act to ensure the survival of us both, not just one or the other.

“Fine.” I spat. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” I moved over to her said and stuck both my fore hooves beneath the wooden beam that pinned her to the floor. “I’m going to try and lift this off of you on the count of four. If your as tough as you say you are, than I’m going to need you to help me. Try using your back to shrug it off.”

“Alright; one, two, three, four!” with all the strength I could muster, I lifted the collapsed beam. The mare did her part and pushed herself up using all four of her legs. The timber slowly moved off the ground, making just enough space for her to slide out from underneath it. Once she was free I released my grip on the heavy plank and let it fall to the ground.

“Thanks a lot.” she sighed in relief. “It feels good to be free again.”

“Lets set out immediately, I don’t have a lot of supplies so we shouldn’t waste any more time here than we need to.” She shook her head in agreement and made to leave the boxcar before suddenly stopping.

“What supplies do you have?” she asked, putting a lot of emphasis on ‘do.’ “I’m really thirsty, and could really go for some water right now.”

“I have five bottles of water, that’s it. We can ration it accordingly depending on how long the journey will take.” I stated plainly.

“If I had to guess, I’d say we have a six or seven day trip ahead of us, but that’s if we take regular breaks. We will definitely get there a lot faster if we rest only when necessary.”

“Ok, then I thinks it fair if we each drink half a bottle a day. It’ll be tough, but we should manage.”

“Really?” asked the mare, as if my answer was a big surprise to her. “You’d give me, a slave, an equal share?”

“I’m not stupid. You’re my guide to reaching this oasis, I cant have you keeling over and dying on me.” I saw the silhouette of her head cocked on an confused angle, as if the prospect of me being slightly concerned for her well being was a complete shock.

“Well, I wont fight you. If it means more water for me, than I’m happy.”

“Ok, then follow me. We’re going to head to the front of the train to get the water bottles, and then set out towards this oasis. I don’t want any funny business from you, remember that you still have an explosive collar fastened around your neck. If you try anything stupid, I wont hesitate to set it off.”

“Hmph! I was just starting to like you, but then you had to go and bring that up. Like I said before, you don’t have to worry about me pulling any stunts. Besides, we are in this together.”

“Alright, I just wanted to make that cle-” A sudden thought popped into my head. Something wasn’t quite right about all this.

“What?” asked the mare.

“How do you know how far we are from this ‘oasis?’” I asked, reaching for the revolver at my side. She hadn't been outside at all, so she couldn't possibly know where we exactly were. If it turned out she had just duped me, i wouldn't hesitate to kill her. if there was one thing i hated, it was being deceived. I stopped, however, as I saw a bright toothy grin spread across her face.

“To be honest, I’m simply making an estimated guess. One based solely off of that.” she pointed her hoof towards the entrance to the caboose. There, outlined in the doorway, was the sprite bot that had followed me back here. “It is MY sprite bot, after all.”

It didn’t take us long to reach the front of the train and gather what little supplies I had. Once they remaining water bottles were evenly distributed and placed in saddle bags, we set out westwards. The rising sun warmed my back, as the last breath of the evening cooled my sun burnt face. It felt nice, and helped to clear my head of all the troubles that had befallen me as of late.

“So, how did somepony like you get a hold of a sprite bot?” I asked.

“That’s a secret I’ll keep to myself, if you don’t mind.” replied the mare. “I’m really not supposed to tell anypony. If I did, I’d get in a lot of trouble.” I wanted to push the matter further, but decided to let it go. I was in no position to act superior to her. Even if she still was my slave, we were both on the same level for now.

“Well, how about your name? Can you at least give me that?"

"Not a chance." she replied smugly.

"Why not?"

"There are two reasons why. The first one being that names are pretty, but useless. Only serving to give us labels we never had the liberty of choosing. The other reason being that names can be incredibly dangerous. Say for example a bounty hunter has taken a new contract to hire a murderer. right off the bat they have the ponies name, and they can use that information to track that individual all the way to kingdom come. On another note, names can act as a gateway into somepony's psyche. If a raider is stalking a victim in a tunnel, or through the streets of a decrepit city they can shout the name of their prey. It makes the conflict more personal, and can even turn terrifying for the one being pursued. I hope you can see why i dont want to tell you."

What she had just said made an awful lot of sense. It must've been a subject she had considered for a very long time. I was content to accept her answer for the time being, but sooner or later i would get a name out of her. But for now, i would be spending the next few days traveling through the desert with a horse with no name.