He said he needed sleep, he had been on night shifts, and wasn't used to staying awake in the day-hours. I stayed awake to keep watch while feeling a little unsure of myself. After awhile I eventually moved to lay down near his side thinking he had fallen asleep, it couldn't really hurt after all. Amazingly enough he rolled over towards me, laid his head down against my chest and cuddled against me as if he had been waiting the entire time.

"That's better."

I feel that maybe I was far too lenient. I laid my head near his, wide awake while he quickly fell asleep against me. I really cant remember how long I stayed awake while watching the light fade outside the window near us. But I do remember thinking I could happily stay like this forever, if only time would let me.

In my current situation this was a small light in the darkness, and I vowed to brighten it no matter the cost.

All I ended up doing was blinding myself.

Everything hurt.

In the darkness behind my closed eyes I attempted to convince myself that I eventually needed to open them. Regardless that the rest of me was dreading to do so. Sighing under my breath I tried blinking a bit at first, only to end up wincing with a groan as even the smallest amount of light burned into my retinas. My head hurt, my back hurt, my wings...

Ugh, I still couldn't move my wings. Except this time they also felt tied down.

"Moving wouldn't be a wise choice."

Turning my blurry vision towards the sound of the voice I could make out the shape of the mare from before. It took another few slow blinks before my surroundings took more shape rather then just fuzzy blobs of dull color. We appeared to be in a small back room of sorts, and the mare was laying on her side near the doorway as if she had been keeping watch. I on the other hand was laid down atop a small bunk-like bed in the corner. One of my novasurge rifles was propped near my make-shift bed. The rest of the room had little else but a broken window, and a few cabinets.

Glancing back at the mare I noticed she'd removed whatever her armor was, giving me a far better look at her. My second rifle leaned up against the door frame within easy each of her hoof. Her coat color was a tanned beige, with her eyes matching the dark brown of her mane and tail. Both of these were tied back, appearing far longer then they really should have been. The only real bright color she had on her was the single steak of gold running through her mane, and down through her tail. Otherwise, she was extremely earthly colored.

To be perfectly honest...she was kind of a chunky looking earth pony.

Almost as if she could read my mind her eyes narrowed and she let out a snort of breath in my direction. Quickly looking back outside the doorway with a whip of her head that made her pony-tail smack the frame of the doorway. Not that she really noticed.

"Done staring, feather-head?"

I rolled my eyes, fine then. I turned my attention back to myself noticing that little bunk-bed I was laying on was covered up with ragged cloth. Well, that's where her make-shift armor had went. Lifting my head slowly I turned and looked at the rest of my body. My armor had been removed, and there were bandages that wrapped completely around my middle and over-top my folded wings. I didn't even really look like a pegasus like this...wait. My armor was removed?

"Don't look so startled. I took it off you to wrap your wings down. I think your muscles were damaged by that brahmin-prod looking thing," she said, when I had turned to address her about my missing armor. She had turned her head to look at me again, though now the annoyed expression showed one of honesty. "I needed to remove it to make sure you were alright, and you don't need to be wearing it down here in-front of anyone else. I got it bagged up."

"That's....okay. I think," I muttered back a reply. This was the mare who had caused me to black out in the first place. She had also saved me, sort of. I was having very mixed feelings about all of this. "Thank you for your concern," I finally added, politely.

That got an approved nod from her, as she crossed her front legs and laid her head down on them while she went back to looking out the open doorway. It was then I noticed with the movement that her right foreleg, right above her fetlock, had a pipbuck attached to it. I remembered having learned about those in school, which also made me remember something else.

"You could have actually hit him?" I pointed at the machinery with a hoof.

"Hm?" She looked back at me, looked at my hoof, and followed its point to her leg. "Oh. If you mean SATs, I tried. Stupid ballerina was a little too fast," She then shrugged and looked back out the door. "When his mane caught fire? I was actually aiming for his head."

That explained that at least, though I kind of wish she hadn't missed.

"I'm sorry about your friends, by the way," she said quietly, which brought my attention to the morbid change of subject. "I normally don't get involved with whatever happens between you kind of ponies, but..." Another shrug to end her comment. "I took you and left, I was worried more would show up."

"Better safe then sorry I guess." I did feel a slight pain of my fellow pegasi being gone, but at the same time I more tried to avoid pressing the subject of 'you kind of ponies'. "What did you say you were named again before my quite sudden introduction with your back hoof?" Well, maybe I did end up a little snarky. She rolled her eyes and looked directly at me again.

"Karma, and you, feather-head?"

"Cloud." I matter-of-factually replied.

I got a silent stare in reply before slowly one of her brows raised in scrutiny, rather then confusion. Her head slightly tilting to her left as I saw her eyes switch to my exposed flank. I guess she'd gotten an eye full before with having removed my armor.

"For such a insanely boring Pegasus name, your mark don't make a 'lotta sense."

I really couldn't help a sigh, instinct fully attempting to turn my head though quickly turned that sigh into a soft hiss of pain. I did end up being able to look at my cutie mark just barely though. A plain metal sword sat atop a golden sun that made up the background. The sword wasn't even remotely interesting, just the blade and hilt. It wasn't horrible looking by any means, other ponies had worse marks, but...

"Asking me wont do any good, never did figure out what my special talent was."

"Join the club," She grinned slightly. Turning her head towards her own right flank to draw my attention. On her flank, was a gold beam scale. The gold matched her highlight within her mane and tail rather nicely, but the scales themselves were not balanced. The left scale was lower while the right one hovered above it. It was...skewed looking? But, at the same time I felt a bit of relief that my current company at least could understand to a degree the embarrassment of having an unknown talent, and a mark to taunt you.

"Ive always hated trying to explain why I don't know what my mark means, my parents thought it meant I was going to be a hoof-to-hoof combat pony but I had never even touched a sword before I got this," I just barely stopped myself from shrugging my shoulders. That would have hurt. "Never did made a lot sense.."

"I understand," Was all I got in a reply. Her grin had fell during my attempt at further conversation, and the stoic expression that followed made me get the sudden feeling that something was being avoided. "Anyway...sadly I do not have any potions to get your wings back in action. But I have a friend that should be meeting us sometime tomorrow. Until then Ive dragged you about as far as I think we needed to move to be safe," So that's how I got here.

"Thank you again," I answered her, and was quiet again for a few minutes while she turned her head back around to re-check outside. "So, where are we at currently?"

"An old crystal re-charging station for sky-chariots and carriages, its already been ripped clean, but gives us enough shelter for the night. I don't think anyone is going to be bothering us here," She waved a hoof towards the outside, even though from my position I could barely see anything besides dirt and trash in the dieing light.

"Good enough place as any I suppose," Muttering under my breath before slowly laying my head down in front of me. We were quiet for a long while after that. Mainly because I was tired, even after being unconscious for the last few hours. Today had been rough, and I'd been expecting a semi-comfortable cloud-bunk to be lounging in. Hell, I'd expected I would have been there the entire day if all this madness hadn't raised its head.

I think I might have muttered again, something along the lines of 'sleepy' or even 'goodnight'. I did remember though, the earthy mare having glanced in my direction. Maybe the faint smile had been there. Maybe not.

That older colt was enjoying himself at my expense, again. I hated being small.

We walked in a straight line to our class, the teacher a hazy figure far enough ahead to be bothered by us.

His tail flung backwards, smacking across my muzzle again. I sighed.

He snickered. His friends snickered in front of him.

"So do you really enjoy this?" I whispered. "Honestly?"

No response.

"I was talking to you." I tried again.

His ears drooped. Still nothing.

"You don't have to pretend."

"Yes...I do."

My eyes fluttered slightly. What was I dreaming about again? Maybe a few more minutes and I could...

"Wakey-Wakey, feather-head. We 'gotta be 'headin out." Poke. Ow. Poke.

Seriously, ow?

With a frustrated groan I raised my head up, causing me to quickly wince. Well that was an awful reminder. I licked my lips against the uncomfortable dryness, before blinking up and the figure of the mare shadowing herself over me. The light didnt look like it had changed outside, but she was up with large saddle bags already attached to her sides. Though I couldn't remember where she had got them. I saw my rifles under those saddle bags, where she'd somehow got them attached within her easy reach.

"Its a little past sunrise. If we leave now, the better. I hope your able to walk today. I really don't feel like carrying you around again," She poked my side once again, that got me to grumble something crude at her, though she pretended not to hear and walked outside to wait for me. "And grab my suit."

"Suit?" I looked around the room...and then remembered the rags I was laying on. "Uh...sure..."

Carefully I scooted myself to the side of bed and placed a gentle hoof on the floor before seeing if it would handle my weight. When it seemed just fine I climbed myself out of the bed. Luckily enough the rags I'd been sleeping on seemed to be mostly stitched together so I was able to hoof-grab and toss it over my back. It was a little uncomfortable as it flopped over my wings and shoulders, but the bandages seemed to have helped me heal some-what. Though the back of my neck still hurt whenever I moved my head too much or too quickly.

It took me a little while to nip and tuck the fabrics into place, specially without the use of my wings which again caused me to grumble. But finally I could move and turn without it falling off my back. When I walked outside I ended up having to put a hoof over my eyes as the light stung them for a few seconds. I never really was a morning pony.

The ground was bathed in hues of random greyed out orange, even through the clouds the sun somehow got color down here at sunrise. Though it was muted compared to what I was used to. Apparently the little shack we had spent the night in was actually all that was left of whatever this building used to be. The concrete under my hooves continued all the way out to the road. There might have been a front part of this building at some point, but the roof was gone, and all was left were some rusting rebar pointing at random angles along the sides where the walls must have been. Forgotten machines, or what was left of them, pushed out of the pony-made stone. Though most of these were either completely dismantled, or simply half-gone to really have been able to tell how they were to be used.

Karma, I realized I was getting used to thinking of her as her namesake and not just earth-colored-mare, was standing in the middle of what was left of the road. Tapping a hoof as she looked at me.

"If you want to be able to fly any time soon lets go. I also would like to get home at some point," She called over to me, before turning to head down the road regardless if I decided to follow or not. With a sigh I carefully trotted over to her regardless of my discomfort and stepped in slightly behind and to her right before matching our speed. Which apparently wasn't much, she kinda walked a little slow. After a few quiet minutes I would see her tilt her head to regard me with her right eye, as if she was checking up on me.

"I'm sorry, I don't really like the mornings either. But this way we can be more careful, and we can still meet my friend by nightfall."

I had to fight myself not to shrug again. First she is wanting me to hurry, next we're going to take a casual stroll through the wasteland by hoof. Today was turning out to be awesome so far.

And apparently I wasn't keeping a tight enough rein on my sarcastic thoughts because she suddenly snickered at me. I guess my expression had pretty much betrayed my thoughts. Though it was the snickering that hit a sore spot for some reason. I angled my gaze at her flank to my left, knowing she was still looking at me.

"So, do you think that cutie mark is because your..."

"If you try to explain I have scales on my ass because I am fat I will buck you in the head, again."

I couldn't help but laugh, and she couldn't help following suit shortly after.

A couple of hours later and I was bored out of my mind. Hoofing it was so slow compared to flying.

Most of the day went along pretty uneventful. Karma was pretty content after our mini-argument to simply keep quiet as we walked down the road. Every once in awhile she would attempt to lift her head and look further in the distance, where I figured she was keeping an eye out for this friend of hers. She'd shuffle her shoulders a little, where I'd guessed hauling around both my guns, my armor, and whatever else she owned was uncomfortable. I thought about offering to help, but with my bandaged back and neck still aching, I figured she wouldn't relent even if I had.

The surrounding area wasn't even remotely interesting either. Specially since I had seen most of it already mid-flight and even though I think we were headed north, according to whatever street signs remained, there wasn't much difference here either. About the most interesting things we crossed would be the few broken down carriages and carts along the sides of the road. Karma didn't bother stopping to look at these, they were either too far gone to be bothered with, or I figured she'd already been past this way before. There was a skeleton or two, that I tried my best to ignore, Karma didn't seem bothered by them.

Looking behind us let me notice the mountains I had seen in my flight before were slowly getting further away, while in front of us in the far distance I think I was able to notice some new ones. I let my ears droop slightly at the thought of having to walk all the way over there just to get my wings back in action so I could go home. I tried just barely attempting to ruffle some feathers under the bandages, but it seemed the muscles along my shoulders just didn't want to respond correctly. All I ended up was making my neck ache even further.

As color of the surrounding landscape had changed from bleak orange hues, to simply bleak day-light hues, the orange was slowly returning again. Karma was giving off soft huffs of breath and was lifting her shoulders more often. My hooves hurt, I wasn't used to walking for any long period of time. Specially on anything other then clouds.

Finally, she shifted to the left side of the road once we crossed another one of those broken down carriages, luckily with no skeletons attached. She put it between herself and the road and let out the same huff of breath as she sat down. Shrugging off the saddle bags and letting both them and my rifles fall into the dirt. I couldn't help but narrow my eyes at her for that, which she quickly caught the attention, letting out a soft sigh when she did.

"Only one of them even works right now....the energy cartridges were spent until I added the low one in," She said while taking the time to completely lay down and at least re-arrange the rifles to lay atop one of the saddle bags she'd been carrying. The sound of muffled clinking metal led me to realize which one had my armor then. I took a minute to reach behind me and push her 'suit' near her bags from off of my back.

"And how would you know that?" I asked, stepping around to the other side of her that faced her front. Laying down with a bit of a jerky motions as my muscles dared to stiffen at the difference in motion. I rubbed my front hooves together to keep them from tingling, when I noticed she didn't answer right away. I brought my attention back directly to her, she had stopped with her head down looking into her saddle bag. Ears flattened backwards with a slight narrowing of her eyes, she looked very thoughtful in that moment.

"Your other...colleagues. When I realized what was happening anyways... The two that were together, one had a chance to try to fire at that ballerina, but the weapon just fizzled," She shrugged at that point, her earlier expression quickly turning back to the aloof one as she pulled out her half-mask from her bag with her muzzle before diving back in again. "Again, I am sorry."

I really did not know what to say to that. There was no doubt in my mind that she may have been lying to me, but I had a feeling not to push the subject either. I'd try and take care of the mess when I got home.

I noticed her digging a hoof into the bag for a minute, before scooping out a pair of black glassy rocks. She then hauled herself back to her hooves and stepped around me to the fallen carriage. Stepping to the side door of the contraption she leaned inside out of my line of sight. A ripping sound was heard and next thing I knew, she was dropping a mess of ragged cloth and wood splinters on the ground near the rocks she'd pulled out, spitting afterwards with a 'blegh'.

"Ew?" I questioned as I followed my gaze as she stepped back to the carriage again. Bucking her back hooves against the front frame allowed what rotted wood there was to easily crack off. She then scoot-hoofed these larger pieces over to her rubbish pile.

"Yes, but I'd rather have some light tonight," With that being said she flopped down and slid one of the rocks near the edge of her pile near an edge where some of the cloth was poking out. Watching her (hold?) the second rock with a hoof and begin smacking the two of them together just hurt my head to watch. Not just her holding the rock with nothing but her hoof, but the sparks they produced as well. Something instinctual inside of me kept from asking questions.

Soon enough, one of the sparks caught the edge of the 200-hundred year old fabric into a tiny flame. She quickly darted her head down and began breathing it to life. The cloth quickly brought the flame to the wood and we had a small fire going within a few minutes. She hoof-pumped in personal victory.

"Who needs Unicorns, right?" And that same hoof was thrust in my direction while she grinned. I looked between it and her a few times before carefully lifting my own to lightly bump our hooves together. This easily pleased her as she went back to watching the fire grow. I hardly knew anything about this mare, but at the same time I really didn't feel threatened by her either. Even if she had caused me one heck of a headache the day before.

By this time it was nearly fully night, and the fire was casting orange flickers on our surroundings. It was almost comforting in a strange way, and it had me wondering if ponies in the far past had circled around fire anything like this to simply bask in warmth and presence of one another, slowly lowering my head to my hooves and watching both the fire and Karma.

Suddenly, her head twisted around towards the road in a drastic motion, as if she heard something. I didn't bother to lift my head at first as I simply looked over in the street's direction. But with the daylight having nearly completely faded I couldn't see much.

Karma thrust herself to her hooves and continued to stare in the encroaching dark. After a minute she lifted one of her hooves and stomped it onto the ground four times in a rhythm-like pattern. That made me raise a brow at her as I lifted my head back up, wondering what the issue was. But then just as I was thinking maybe she had a sudden case of madness, out of the dark the same four hoof-stomps came, echoing her rhythm perfectly. Couldn't she just have used SATs...?

A wide grin was given and Karma was suddenly off and into the dark, leaving me at the fire. I wasn't quite sure if I should be startled or not, but the soft laughter coming from the road lead me to believe I shouldn't worry. It was a few minutes before two ponies stepped off of the road and into our light of the fire. One was Karma, the other was a very large earth stallion.

He was an even darker earth-brown color then she was. His coat looked like if the earth had been freshly rained on. A ragged black wide-brimmed hat that had seen far better days sat atop a mane of almost matching glossy black. The fire made his eyes look equally as black, though they could have been a darker brown then Karma's, hers still looked like a warm brown even in the yellow-orange light. His mane was short-cut, but his tail remained long.

The fire also showed a single saddle bag back on his left, and what looked like a hilt just to the right of his head, within easy reach. Which he showed when he whipped his head around to grab the hilt within his teeth and pull one of the largest looking swords I'd ever seen from his back and allowed it to thrust into the ground part-way. With a stretch he laid down near it, rubbing his hooves together in the same manner I had awhile ago. I made a mental note to check out that weapon later.

Karma helped him remove his saddle bag, and she dropped it to her side when she laid herself down near the stallion. She smiled to him once, he silently replied with a nod of his head, and she then turned her attention back to me.

"Cloud, this is Stance Dance. Or just Stan for short," Tilting her head towards him in indication. He raised a hoof to his hat, and tilted it towards me respectfully. "Stan, this is Cloud. I found him in Poppy Fields," She stalled for a moment, right as I was thinking that 'found' wasn't a good choice of words. "...he's a pegasus."

Part of me was glad she hadn't lied for some reason, but Stan's reaction was slightly harsh. His mildly friendly outlook took a turn towards the hostile as he narrowed his eyes under his hat at me. He still didn't say anything, except letting out a snort of breath in my direction.

"Cool it, he's ignorant," Karma said while applying a hoof to Stan's shoulder in a mock form of comfort.

"Wait a second. Ignorant?" I would have been flaring my wings at her if they still weren't tied down. I had put up with all the feather-head remarks, and the 'you kind of ponies' statement earlier, but now she has the nerve to call me ignorant. "What do you mean by ignorant? You both are dust-dwellers. How would either of you know anything of pegasi?" Throwing one of my hooves in their direction with a accusing thrust.

I didn't get a reply straight away. The two earth ponies simply looked at me, though they didn't seem as annoyed with the racial slur I used in reply to their own racism. Karma simply rolled her eyes before leaning against Stan with a tired expression. Stan never moved his eyes from me, but their narrowed expression softened slightly.

"Lets just get some sleep and we'll talk about this in the morning, we'll even try to get your wings working again, alright?" Karma eventually responded, though she never even waited for a reply as she closed her eyes and simply relaxed. Stan took a moment to turn his head and look at Karma, before turning back to look at me. He still didn't say anything, but he raised a hoof to his hat and pulled it down over his eyes, while staring at me the entire time I might add, and laid his head down on the ground without having uttered a single word this entire time. For all I knew he was mute.

I let out an overly exasperated sigh and thumped my head onto the ground. Which only ended up irritating my neck even further. These two ponies had single hoovingly made me feel like colt, and now I was pretty much being ignored. My hooves hurt, my neck still hurt, and all I wanted to do at that very moment was to go home.

Daylight couldn't come fast enough.

Author's Note

(Fallout Equestria: TQF Wiki Article)

Bad grammar is bad. Apologies!