Fallout: Equestria - Of Taint and Colts

Although I would like to continue my search today, I am still somewhat unsteady as I check out of the hospital. It will be another full day in Slip’s home before I manage to walk around comfortably on my own. Without major incident, however, I am checked out of the hospital and leave, exposing myself to the light of a crisp blue sky.

It’s at that very moment that I can finally think about the sight of the sky, and I freeze. It feels like I could lose grip on the ground and splash into that eternal ocean!

I cuddle down to the ground and whimper.

“What’s with you?”

Tourniquet is looking back at me strangely. I shiver in fright and point up.

“The sky? You’re scared of the sky?”

I nod. “It’s so big… Can we fall up?”

Slip laughs. “Nopony’s ever fallen up, Candy. You’re safe.”

I swallow. “I hope so! Let’s get inside… this openness is freaky!”

Tourniquet smirks.

“What?!”

“I can’t believe it took you five days to freak out about the sky. According to the doctor, agoraphobia is usually evident much faster.”

I glare at her. “Well, I was getting over the combined trauma of being thrown out of my Stable, getting caught in my first firefight, being exposed to meat for the first time, nearly dying, being thrown out of another village like a piece of trash, building an igloo to sleep in, revelling in the feelings of fu…” I stop my brain to suppress a very private moment “…uuhree flight, discovering the Shattered Hoof Gorge, and meeting a colt with way too much knowledge of anatomy and bad words for his age! My mind was a little busy to deal with the frivolity of how big the sky was at the time! My brain just kind of shut down!”

Tourniquet and Slip snicker.

“What now?!”

Slip drops back to walk beside me and whispers, “You banged Tournie, didn’t ya?”

I slap him as we howl in laughter.

We pad our way through the town again, then soon find ourselves on Slip’s couch, snacking on some sort of foodstuff.

Tourniquet swallowed hers and said, “Okay, you said that you have to find a secure location for something from Stable Eighty-Four…”

“Eighty-five, yes.”

“…then get into the Stable and take it…”

“Yes.”

“…from a mad general who has full-on mana cannons under his control…”

“Yes.

“…then bring it back to the secure location…”

“Yes.”

“…without telling anyone what it is.”

“Yes.”

Tourniquet slowly shakes her head. “Okay. Now that you’ve broken this mission down for me, it sounds absolutely preposterous.”

I quickly shake my head to be sure I’ve heard right and glare. “Wait, what? In what way?”

“Well, first,” Tourniquet said, shuffling her body a little, “there’s the problem of finding anything secure here in theses Wastelands. Unless you want to take it into Tenpony Tower or Junction R-7, which I’m told are relatively secure, you’re shit outta luck. Everything that would have been secure on this side of the old Equestrian border has long been raided. If you tried to make it to the New Canterlot Republic, you’d be killed before you even reached it. I’m surprised this town hasn’t been demolished yet.

“I’ll find something, I’m sure. It’s just a matter of looking hard.”

“Geez, you’re determined…” Tourniquet says, running a hoof along her helmed head. “Well, I hate to admit it, but the doctor was right on one account. You really have to be careful about who you trust. This town, for example, is a breath of fresh air, to be sure, and a good oasis for the weary. However, it does have a dark side.”

I scoff. “What settlement doesn’t? I mean, even a well-oiled machine like my Stable still has an odd person who steps out of line. I have half a mind to get the Secret and just trust it to this town.”

“Well, for starters, the town’s run by these bitches called th’ Citadel,” Slip Kid whispers. “They’s got spies everywhere. Nothin’ goes in or out o’ this town without ‘em knowin’. Hell, I’m damn surprised they ain’t gone an’ checked your ass out at the fuckin’ gates!”

Tourniquet nods. “They’re a rather ruthless bunch of Equalists. That is, anything that isn’t precisely equal, they quickly eliminate. Did you see the cutie marks of this town?”

I pause and think. The guards who wore their armor? No unique, colourful cutie marks on them. The townsfolk? Them too. The filly who briefly ran from a fruit stand to her mother as we made the turn to Slip’s the first time… I realize that, other than visitors, all the citizens of this town haven’t had cutie marks.

“They didn’t have any.”

Slip shakes his head. “Wrong. They all have fucking cutie marks. They’re all white slashes!”
The same scenes flash in my head. By Celestia, Slip’s right! Each and every pony involved has a plain white line where their cutie mark should have been!

“Why would they do that?” I ask.

“They call it Celestia’s Blood,” Tourniquet says, fishing out a mouthful of hay fries before continuing. “They say that when Celestia entered the Single Pegasus Project for the first time, she had her wings sheared half-off to fit inside the maneframe. When that happened, she bled white. The three ponies who were helping her get set up just before were so sickened by what Celestia was doing to herself as penance for the war, which she wholly blamed upon herself, that when they finished, they took her blood and smeared it upon themselves. Once Celestia took control, they left with the collected vats and left Equestria forever.”

“And they ended up here.”

Tourniquet sighed. “No. They did not. Two barely made it two feet out the front door when they were killed. A third managed to flee, injured, to a neighbouring town where a mother was nursing her injured daughter back to health. Two drops of Celestia’s Blood was said to cure any disease completely.”

“Did it?”

“No,” Tourniquet said. “But the mother, when she lost the child, left with the stallion and denied themselves their talents and cutie marks by painting a white diagonal line across their flanks. They wandered for a while, spreading medical aid and the religion of Equality wherever they went, and eventually became the first settlement in this town, on the edge of zebra country, near the war front at Shattered Hoof.”

I gasp. “How did they survive!? The zebras would have killed them on the spot.”

Tourniquet shook her head. “By the time they built the settlement, the war had ended in this area and no one, zebra or pony, was going to enter Shattered Hoof Ridge without a damn good reason. The scar Celestia had left behind tore the soul outta the place for about a hundred years. The subsequent balefire bomb left that foul blue mist that eats ponies alive, should they fall into the gouge.”

“Anydick,” Slip interrupted, “the Medical Facility was a’purposed by the Equestrian government an’ any record of it bein’ that disappeared. It became some re-edjamacation place, then was left to rot, then was razed to th’ ground last year. Shattered Hoof Town’s built on the ruins.”

“The current town shares its name with the Fortress, but it’s a separate settlement on the other side of the mountain.” Tourniquet interjected. “Occasionally, delegates try to get it to change its name, but we’re pretty proud of our little town.”

“So we were in New Canterlot territory the whole time?” I ask. “Wow. Are we still in it?”

“Yes, but the Citadel is in a dispute wi–”

Everything else she says is drowned out by a loud siren that echoes clearly in my head. When the noise stops, I see Tourniquet scramble for the door.

“What was that?” I inquire.

Tourniquet is busy waving ponies down and inviting them inside. I notice most of those pouring in are mares and foals.

Slip replies, “Tha’s th’Patriarch’s Call. It means th’Patriarch o’ th’Citadel’s gonna make his rounds soon.”

A random mare, her coat a brilliant ambrosia and half a head of silver hair, chimes in. “You new here, filly?”

I nod.

“Don’t get caught outside when the Patriarch’s guards come–”

A filly shrieks. “MAMA!”

I get up and push towards the window. Six unicorns are restraining an Earth pony mare, hind legs parted, facing away from us.

“What are…”

The ambrosia mare begins to shed a tear. “I’m sorry, newcomer. You shouldn’t see this.”

A large, red stallion clad in shimmering white robes steps forward, a morose frown upon his face. His high, nasal voice is like a buzzsaw to my brain, rending my thoughts apart to leave no room but for his ideas.

“Sister Chaste Serenity, it is with utmost sadness that I must punish you for your tardiness. As you well know, any mare caught outside after My Horn is subject to Submission Protocol.”

I could see the shadow of something bouncing against his belly. Chaste whimpers, then begins to struggle.

“No! Dammit, no!”

One of the Patriarch’s guards brings a hoof down hard upon the small of her back. Her child screams again. Most of the foals are crying.

I frown. “Is he…?”

A whimper from the ambrosia mare, who I’ll now call Amber because calling her such a long title is annoying the tar out of me, confirms my fears.

“That fucking bastard!”

As if hearing me, he glares at the house, then pans his eyes around.

“Remember, Sister Chaste, if order is broken, security from raiders cannot be ensured.”

With that, the punishment commences.

“Why the hell do they put up with that?!”

Our guests have left. Watching them leave, I very quickly note that none of the females walk with their heads held high, even among those that didn’t witness the atrocity before them. Even most of the fillies eyed their male peers with suspicion, while the colts trotted blissfully into the sun. I’m left stomping around the house, fuming my head off.

Slip frowned. “No diff’rent’n a raider camp. Brainless and ‘pressive .”

Tourniquet’s look hardened. “I want to tear the throat out of the Citadel. Seriously – the Patriarchy makes me sick. It has every single time I pass through this town.”
“But them ponies dun know no better, an’ most o’th’ mares’n stallions’re willin’ t’ put up wit’ a li’l loss o’ dignity f’their safety.” Slip mumbled.

“It’s true.” I turn in shock, but realize who is speaking. Apparently Amber has stayed behind. “I’d much rather be in here with civilized creatures than out there in the unknown, but I do so wish it didn’t involve such a degradation. I’m Leftov Centre, by the way. Sorry you had to wait so long for a proper introduction.”

…not what I’ve been expecting, given her name.

What.

She continued. “Frustration’s been mounting lately over the oppression of females, especially among the younger population. However, there are people older than us who performed the practice for their superiors willingly. They consider complete subservience to be the mark of a citizen of Einamir. Most of them learned from their fathers, and all of them were taught by the original Celestia’s Blessed.”

My intuition begins whispering into my ear. To confirm its suspicions, I look over at Tourniquet. “Must be the group that came from the mare and stallion you mentioned to me earlier.”

Leftov nods. “The youth are disenfranchised with the notion of that level of subservience, though. A wave of them even went through secret weddings, call themselves common law, or even simply move in together and fuck to avoid First Night Rights.”

I frown. “That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

Leftov shook her head. “It isn’t. The Patriarch has laid claim to any girl’s virginity. Says you can’t fuck until he’s popped your cherry. Luckily, it’s not that enforced. Hell, after an event like this, there will be a wave of ponies losing their virginity. Unfortunately, not many of them will be by choice.”

As if to punctuate her point, a scream is heard from the alley nearby. I run to a window and peer out into the street.

There are six colts pounding a hysterical adult mare just outside the window! Not only that but four stallions are doing the same to a pair of crying fillies!

And they were cheering. Each! Other!! On!!!

I nearly retch all over the window, but manage to hold it in while I whip my head out of the frame. A dull thump echoes throughout the room as I collapse to the floor in equal parts fury and disgust. I empty my stomach onto the floor. I would not be entrusting the Secret to such a depraved place. At all.

I look over at Leftov. All traces of her formerly together demeanour have vanished entirely, replaced with a contorted, downcast slump and eyes pouring rivers of hate onto the floor. A blubbering whimper soon escaped her lips in a gasp.

“Help us. Please.”