Author's Note

Those of you who may be confused about the reference to a place called Adams Apple, I had to go back and rename Collateral's air force base, since even after all my fact-checking I had moronically switched up air force bases from Fallout 3 and Fallout NV. Adams Apple takes the place of Neighless, just like Adams AFB is the capital wasteland's air force base and Nellis AFB is from NV. It took four chapters and a prologue for me to finally pick up on that?

This change has been reflected in all previous chapters. And so we move on!

Chapter 4: PipBucks and Hoofprints

Chapter 4: PipBucks and Hoofprints

The next few days passed in strained silence. Jester wasn't speaking to me, and when I tried talking to him, I'd receive mostly grunts and single-word answers (if anything at all). I spent most of the time fetching wood from the outskirts of the Whitetail Woods, taking care to imbibe a RadAway at the end of the day to flush out the building radiation poisoning.

Several times out of the corner of my eye I had seen shadowy movement deep within the forest cover, but every time I tried to focus on it, all stood still. Between Jester's silence and the malevolent forest looming over me, every passing hour felt longer than the last. At least with the wood I retrieved, Jester had been able to patch up the walls of his house. I had been sleeping on the beat-up sofa because I couldn't clean the blood from my hospital cot, which had earned a scoff from Jester but nothing more. I needed a way to get through to him, but for the life of me I couldn't do a damn thing to defrost the chill in the air between us.

A chance finally came with the arrival of a rotting pony pulling a beat-up wooden cart. I'll be honest, I nearly shit myself when I saw that flying zombie drop out of the sky, and had already pulled out (and fumbled) every gun I owned before Jester pushed me aside and waved to the zombie. The pony landed softly and gave Jester a hug (a hug?!) and started showing him the wares in its cart. As Jester walked alongside the cart, a small lavender head with a blonde mane popped out of the cart, gave me a tiny smile, and then jumped on Jester's back. My jaw dropped when Jester laughed and tickled the little lavender filly, earning a squeal and a giggle.

"Hey kiddo, good to see you taking care of your mom's deliveries. Celestia knows she could use all the help she can get," Jester said. The little filly giggled again.

"Mommy doesn't need my help. Sometimes I don't want to be all alone at Absolutely Everything, so I come along with mommy to help her deliver goods," said the little filly. When she said the word "alone", the faintest shadow passed across her face, but her bubbly smile came back immediately.

I stayed back, partly because I was taken aback by the sudden appearance of a flying bag of skin, muscle, and bone that looked like it was being held together by a hope and a prayer (I wasn't scared damnit, don't even think that), and partly because I felt like I was intruding on a private moment between friends.

Deep inside swelled an ache I hadn't felt in years. I wasn't the friendliest pony at Adams Apple, and subsequently I had very ponies at the base I could call friends. Even Spitfire often seemed less like she liked me and more like she tolerated me so I could make myself useful. Before that, at the orphanage, I kept other ponies away because I kept picking fights with everyone. I pawed at the ground moodily, only looking up once a shadow crept over my hoof.

It was the zombie. Up close, it (she? Did the little filly say "mommy"?) was... horrifying. Her skin covered far less muscle than a normal pony's should, with fragments of bones peeking out from gaps in the muscle. Small tufts of golden hair stood defiantly amid her bald and tattered skin. Celestia, even her eyes pointed in two different directions. I tried to keep the terror off my face, but by the split-second look of long-felt hurt on the zombie's face, I could tell I had failed.

She had a chalkboard in her mouth. As I gulped back my fear, I noticed small writing covering the board.

"Hi! My name is Ditzy Doo. I can't speak because I have no tongue, but I can write! Who might you be?" The zombie pony gave me an earnest look.

I felt like an ass. "Umm... hi Ditzy. My name is Collateral. Collateral Damage." I pushed my hair out of my face and tried to smile. "I'm sorry about my, uh, reaction earlier. I'm... well, I'm new to this" (I almost said time) "place, and I've never seen a pony quite like you before."

She gave me a blank look for a second before her face split into a friendly smile, and then she started erasing her chalkboard. Deftly maneuvering a piece of chalk with her mouth, she wrote, "It's totally ok! Everypony has a tough time the first time they run into a ghoul. I'm just glad you didn't shoot me!" She looked pointedly over my shoulder at the mishandled pile of guns and I had the proper grace to look ashamed.

"Ghoul? Is that like a zombie pony?" Me and my big mouth. Jester covered his face with a hoof and the little filly snickered. To my surprise, Ditzy smiled wider and nodded while shrugging. I was about to respond when Ditzy made an Aha face and turned back to her cart, rummaging around behind the curtain. Jester and the little filly were coaxing a new stove off the back of the cart, and I was happy to see Jester using his magic to successfully keep the stove from toppling sideways.

Ditzy cantered back to me with a book in her mouth, a thick grey book with a black pony skull on the cover. It read, "The Wasteland Survival Guide." If I could've hugged the pony (without losing my lunch), I would've. I loved to read, and it looked like this book would go a long way towards helping me not get myself or Jester killed. My joy slowly faded, though, as I remembered the main reason I was still with Jester: my distinct lack of funds. I told her so.

She kept trying to give me the book until I finally gave up and took it from her. She wrote, "The book is free! I've lived quite a long time so I wanted to share what I've learned with everypony and help everypony out. Turn to page 81 to read about ghouls!"

I stared at her. "You wrote this? How old are you?"

"Over 200 years old!" she wrote.

Wait.

"Wait, wait, wait. When were you born?"

"I was born several years before the bombs dropped! I kind of lost track of how many years ago that was, though, some of the years seem to blend into one another."

Sweet Celestia. I pieced together her skin in my mind, gave her long, flowing golden hair, bubbles for a cutie mark, and kept her eyes the same. Oh my Luna, I knew this pony. Or at least knew of her.

"Did you know a pony named Rainbow Dash?"

She nodded vigorously, beaming at me.

"I don't mean this to be insulting, but I once heard her talking about a friend of hers from Cloudsdale who ran a delivery service, a pony named... Derpy?"

Ditzy Doo danced around joyously, bouncing and fluttering with her wings that by all laws of physics shouldn't work.

"Yes!" she wrote. "Ponies used to call me that to make fun of me because of my eyes, but my closest friends called me that so that eventually no one would use it to make fun of me anymore! How did you know that?"

"Ditzy, this is going to sound unbelievable, but... I'm from back then too." I pulled out my dog-tags, which had survived without too much rust. "I was part of Equestria's Airborne Division, Vertibuck Unit. I was a pilot in the great war."

Ditzy Doo dropped her chalkboard and with an ecstatic bounce flew over to me for a hug (she was surprisingly, but not disgustingly, squishy). I didn't even care, I had found someone in the wasteland who came from my time, someone who went through the same hell I did and lived through the same end of the world I knew. I hugged her back, laughing and crying (where the hell were all these tears coming from?!) and laughing some more. I wasn't alone anymore.

Jester and the lavender filly had deposited the stove in the house and were watching us, the filly laughing and bouncing around Jester. He caught my eye and gave me a half-smile; for the first time in days, progress!

Ditzy Doo and Silver Bell (her adopted daughter) stayed over for dinner. I helped Jester cook the radigator meat while he caught up with Ditzy, regaling her with stories of our adventure to the radigator lake as she shook with silent laughter. He floated a pad of paper and several small crayons over to Silver Bell, who squealed with delight and immediately started coloring while I sizzled the meat on the stove (Jester gave me brief instructions on how to cook them, and I had so far burned nearly zero of the steaks).

Jester explained to me what a ghoul was, and how Ditzy Doo had managed to survive this long in the wasteland (she ran a little store and delivery service called Almost Everything out of a town to the northeast, New Appleloosa). He explained how she had been just far enough from the Cloudsdale megaspell to survive the radiation blast, but had taken such a large amount of radiation in such a short amount of time that she was transformed into a ghoul. He refused to tell me about Silver Bell's history though, looking gently at the scar on her forehead and whispering to me that sometimes things in the past should stay in the past.

Jester had changed dramatically over the course of the night. I had never seen him in the presence of other ponies he wasn't actively trying to kill (or, in my unique case, trying not to kill), and it was a heartening sight. He played with Silver Bell and helped her with her drawings; he haggled friendly-like with Ditzy Doo over supplies, eventually depositing a small bag of bottlecaps in her hooves; he even complimented me on my cooking.

By the time Ditzy Doo and Silver Bell left for the night, Jester looked like he had gained years back on his life. He was an angry, dangerous pony yes, but I was overjoyed to see this side of him too. I was afraid the fatherly pony who nursed me back to health was a figment of my recovering mind's imagination and not a real part of him.

I cleaned the dishes for him as he sat watching the cloud cover get darker.

"You know, Collateral," he said, "I think... I've been too hard on you so far. I didn't want to believe you were a pony from before the bombs, so I kept trying to figure out what your angle was. But after seeing you with Ditzy Doo, I'm kinda forced to believe you really did go through all that."

I kept silent, waiting for him to go on.

"I can only imagine what you've gone through so far, and I can promise you you're going to go through a lot more from here, so you need to learn as fast as you can," he said. "It's not that you're stupid, it's that you really don't understand what life is like nowadays. Read the book Ditzy gave you. You've got a good heart and a loud mouth, which is a deadly combo out here. I can't have you getting killed."

I turned and gave him a searching look. He continued, "Because you owe me a lot of money, don't forget that."

I sighed and turned back to the dishes as he gave me that fatherly half-smile again.

He walked over and put a hoof on my shoulder. "Thank you for the way you recovered with Ditzy Doo back there. She is by far one the best ponies in the wasteland, and also one of the only caravans willing to fly all the way out here, and..." he coughed, "well, she's also a friend. There ain't too many opportunities for friendship out here, so I try to keep the ones I have as best I can."

He trotted over to his door, which we had finally fixed earlier with supplies from Ditzy Doo.

"Also, clean up this shit. I'ma teach you about your PipBuck tomorrow and we're going to need more room. And get to bed soon, there's a lot of stuff to go over and I can't teach you if you're going to be dumb."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Thanks, dad. Ass."

His smile froze on his face for a second, the fire going out of his eyes like a candle that's been sneezed on.

"Well... goodnight then." He walked into his room and closed the door.

I closed my eyes and hung my head for a second, angry at myself for knocking the mental wind out of him like that with a careless comment. Jester still had his secrets, his hidden, weeping wounds, and that was ok for now. I wanted to treat him better. He's already given me my life back and helped me meet one of probably the only ponies I'd meet from my time out here. For now, I was going to stay away from family talk, especially since we had just gotten back on track again. Maybe in the future I'd be able to help him out with that.

For now, dishes.

One of these days I'm going to put a bullet through that hospital light. Jester flicked it on right into my face, causing me to desperately claw at the couch cushions to cover my eyes.

"Rise and shine, Collateral. Today is PipBuck day," he said, floating a couple bottles of Sunrise Sarsaparilla from the fridge and tossing me a package of Fancy Buck Snack Cakes. I deftly caught the package and tore it open, washing down the centuries old sugar-topped confection with a swig of Sunrise Sarsaparilla. Hunger and thirst stated, I trotted out the door to relieve my full bladder.

By the time I came back, Jester had levitated the table out of the way and rolled over the medical tray that housed the computer. All of his furniture either leaned against the wall or hid away in the other rooms. I had a bad feeling about how much room he was creating: either he was worried I would damage something while getting the hang of whatever he was going to teach me (possible), or what I was going to learn was painful and he needed room for me to roll around in pain (or maybe that was my imagination getting away from me).

Either way, with some trepidation I found myself sitting at the computer, PipBuck once again wired into the terminal. Jester clacked away at the keyboard, pulling up lines of code and weird symbols. None of it made sense to me, but after a minute Jester clapped his hooves together.

"You have a real early version of the PipBuck software, but thankfully this PipBuck has all the right hardware for the special arcano-tech spells that later models used. You got really lucky on that," he said.

"Yeah, according to Spitfire, this was one of the prototype models that the Stable citizens' PipBucks were based off," I answered. "This wasn't a mass-produced model, but it was supposedly one of the last prototypes and was nearly production-ready."

Jester answered with a distracted "mhmm" and lost himself in the codes again. After a few minutes, the computer pinged at him, and he turned to me with a smile of triumph. My PipBuck's screen turned off and then flickered back on, displaying, "PipBuck updating, please do not turn off your PipBuck." It whirred and beeped and clicked, turning on and off several times. The back plating against my arm started to warm up, prompting me to warn Jester, who waved off my concerns.

With a final ding, my PipBuck screen displayed, "Updated complete! Reboot now? Y/N." I turned the knob until "Y" was highlighted and pressed the button. And promptly screamed.

All of a sudden, my vision was full of floating and moving objects, colors and numbers swirling around each other. I backed away in a panic, waving my hooves and rubbing my eyes to make them go away. Sideswiped by anxiety, I tripped over my hooves and fell into a wall.

"Whoa there, Collateral!" Jester yelled as I lay on the ground in a daze. "Keep your eyes closed and listen to me."

I dutifully closed my eyes and hugged myself to stop shaking, reminding myself there were no floating objects and that I was not losing my mind.

"What you're seeing now is called Eyes Forward Sparkle, or E.F.S. for short. Depending on what your PipBuck is capable of, you should be seeing at least a compass with floating marks and maybe some numbers."

Oh. Damnit, I recognized some of the swirls now. This was just like having my helmet on, but, you know, without the whole actually-wearing-a-helmet thing. I am not a scaredy pony, damnit! I slowly lowered my hooves and opened my eyes. As the numbers and colors settled into position, I started to pick apart what information was being shown.

Directly below my line of sight, I saw a compass that had a little yellow tick on it. When I turned my head left and right, the compass changed direction with me, and the yellow tick stayed pointed at Jester. I asked him about it.

"Ok good, your E.F.S. has a friend-or-foe designator. Yellow is friendly, red is foe. Feel free to shoot anything that pops up as red, but sometimes if you're quick with a word or a hiding place, you can turn an enemy back to friendly."

He also added a word of caution: "If the E.F.S. detects a threat to you, the designator will be red wherever the enemy is located. It is NOT, however, a moral designator. First lesson: not everything that is red should die, and not everything that is yellow deserves to live."

I felt that I had learned that lesson enough times from him, and I had opened my mouth to point that out, but he continued without pause, assuming the air of a school teacher. "Second lesson: all you will see is a red tick. Is it a little bloatfly? A radroach? Or is it a massive manticore that could rip you apart with its bare claws? Always be aware before you charge in headfirst. Discretion is the better part of valor and also the better part of staying alive."

I closed my mouth after that. That was actually good info to remember. I kept moving my head around, trying to spot a red tick, but came up empty.

"Third, the E.F.S. sees everything in a full sphere around you, but it only displays on a 2D line. If you see a red tick, it could be below or above your position, so remember to look up and down as much as you look side to side."

I nodded, watching his yellow tick stay stationary even as my head moved up and down.

"And finally, the E.F.S. does not have to be a permanent display. From the menus in your PipBuck, you can choose whether or not to keep it up. Honestly, I recommend keeping it up at all times except when you're asleep. You'll never know what it'll pick up that we can't see."

"That's really cool, actually," I said, trying to force down the mild dizziness that crept up while I was spinning my head around. "What else can this thing do?"

"Well, several things." He started counting on his hooves. "There's the auto-repair module - that comes in handy when you want to repair your armor and weapons; there's the radio module - not much to listen to nowadays except that yapping DJ from Tenpony and that crazy fool from Fillydelphia; it can download and play messages from terminals - if you have an earbloom you can plug it in and listen to it in your ear; you can connect a long distance transmitter if someone has a receiver on the other end - I have one for the terminal, that's how Ditzy knew to bring a stove; it has a heavy-duty flashlight; it can keep track of your health and your inventory..."

On and on he went, and boy did I feel pathetic. I never even knew this damn thing had a light, much less that it was capable of all that. I picked up Magnolia and it immediately showed me how many shots were in her, how many bullets I had for her, and what condition she was in. This was awesome!

Jester pulled me back to his attention. "The one other main thing it has, and what I think is going to be most important for you, is the Stable-Assisted Targeting Spell, or S.A.T.S. This spell allows you to speed up your perception to the speed of thought so you can line up your targets and plan your attack. Do you see a full bar somewhere on your E.F.S.?"

I nodded that I did. It was in the bottom right corner of my vision.

"Ok, now here is the tricky part: firing off the spell. It's different for all ponies. I've heard it described as 'popping', 'slipping', 'dropping', or 'stepping' into S.A.T.S., though some ponies say they can mentally ask for it or even use a spark of magic to trigger it. You're going to have to learn by trial and error, so catch!"

With that last word, his magic flared. I turned wildly around and caught a sofa cushion to the face. Needless to say, I did not "pop" into S.A.T.S., though I did hear a pop from my jaw. Urgh.

I spent the next hour galloping around the room, dodging cushion after cushion as Jester howled with laughter. I had worked up quite a sweat and had yet to bring up S.A.T.S. even once, though I did manage to bring up a particularly nice bruise above my eye when I had tripped into the wall again.

I needed a second to collect myself. I sat with my back to the corner as the cushions continued peppering my face. Closing my eyes, I focused and thought about what I knew of S.A.T.S. It was supposed to speed up my perception, right? Does that mean like slowing time down? I went with yes, so then what else slows time down? Ponies always talk about their lives flashing before their eyes if they thought they were going to die, but despite my best efforts I couldn't pretend the pillows were going to kill me anytime soon. Thought after thought flew threw my mind without reprieve from the cushy bombardment.

And then it hit me (the thought I needed, not the cushions. Well, also the cushions). That moment right before Vertibuck take off. That deep exhale as I pushed forward the throttle brace and felt the engines roar. In that moment, time would stretch forever and liquid calm would flood my body. I was no longer a pony bound by the laws of gravity. I was free.

I opened my eyes to see the cushions floating in front of me. Jester lay flat on his back, unmoving, eyes closed and mouth set in a wide laugh. I couldn't move, but I could turn my head side to side, taking in to account all friends and enemies in the vicinity. The only thing I could aim at was Jester, and I was surprised to see a percentage number floating above him once I locked on.

Of course, it was a big fat zero. I wasn't that surprised, seeing as I was unarmed and he was way out of my reach. I guessed that S.A.T.S. probably had a specific range tied to whatever weapon I had equipped at that moment, and hooves just weren't going to cut it. There was, however, one more cushion sitting on the floor...

I relaxed my grip on the memory of Vertibuck takeoff and stumbled back, taking two cushions to the face. Jester continued laughing; the poor fool didn't realize I'd figured it out.

I dove for the prone cushion and slipped into S.A.T.S. again. This time, with sofa cushion in mouth, I had the choice to aim for any of Jester's extremities or body. When I aimed at his head, the percentage jumped to nearly 100% percent. Perfect.

I locked on, felt a mental beep in my mind when I chose to attack his head with the cushion, and released my hold on S.A.T.S. With a perfect wind-up and throw, the cushion flew through the air, hitting him smack in his big fat stupid open mouth. He choked on a laugh.

"Yes!" I yelled, jumping in the air and avoiding the last of the moving cushions. Jester sat up with an amused look on his face, spitting the cushion out of his mouth.

"Yup, I think you got it now. I think that's everything I can teach you about your PipBuck, so any other learning about it is going to be on your own."

"Thanks, Jester," I said. "How do you know all these things about PipBucks?"

Was it my imagination, or did Jester's eyes get shifty for a second? "I've, ah, been around ponies who've had them before, and this terminal has a lot of info on them."

I was sure he was hiding something, but now wasn't the time to pry. He seemed thankful when I moved on.

"Well, this is all really cool. Do you know what's this percentage thing I see up in the corner?"

"No idea, never heard of that one," he answered. I had a suspicion it was maybe the suit's talisman, since it had dipped into the 90s and slowly inched its way back up as my face stopped hurting. Good to see it was still working.

"Oh hey, I totally forgot about something!" I said. I ran through my PipBuck menus, found the right setting, and turned it on. "Watch this."

I crouched down and felt my suit start to tingle. The word "STEALTH" popped into my E.F.S., and I could tell the suit still worked by the way Jester's eyes popped out of his face.

"Holy shit!" he yelled. "That's gotta be zebra magic or infused Stealthbucks or some crazy shit in there."

I flickered back into view with a crackle, even though I hadn't stood up.

Jester wrinkled his nose. "Doesn't look like it's working right though..."

"Bah. Apparently it wasn't ever fully configured, but maybe I can still get some use out of it," I said. "I'm going to leave the stealth setting off for now though, that crackle would give me away as badly as actually being visible."

"That's surprisingly good thinking for you," he said. I stuck out my tongue.

He floated over what were becoming my honorary saddlebags and a pile of leather scraps he bought from Ditzy Doo. "Collateral, it's about that time. Pack what you need and see if you can make yourself some holsters with these leathers. We should start heading up to your base tomorrow."

"Yeah, I agree," I said, trying to mask the cold whisper of fear that shot up my spine. "You've been waiting long enough on me, and I'm not going to get much better than this. You gonna help me pack?"

"Yep. I'm going to bring out my supplies so we can figure out what to take and what to leave." He walked to his room and started floating out items into a pile in the main room.

I wasn't much for sewing, but I pulled a staple gun from Jester's toolbox and fashioned myself a rough utility belt. Magnolia was too large for a hip holster, so I added a couple loops to the straps of the saddlebag and made myself a back holster, with the butt of the gun peeking out over my shoulder for an easy draw. The shotgun fit cleanly in its own holster between my flank and one of the saddlebags.

We parsed through the pile together, healing potions and wraps divided between us along with boxes of ammo for our respective weapons. Rad-X and RadAways were divided similarly. I told him about my suit's ability to hold and dispense medical aid, and with his help we finally figured out how to work the control panel on my right flank. Most of my healing potions and RadAways went into the control panel.

Jester's saddle bags already had sewn-in holsters for his weapons - and he made sure to grab nearly all of them. Two large-bore and long-barelled pistols, a beat-up combat shotgun ("I'll repair that on the way," he said), criss-crossing assault rifles (one with a scope and a silencer, the other set up for extended magazines), his knife, and of course the big wooden box housing his sniper rifle. He looked like a walking armory, glistening with blue steel and smelling of gunpowder and oil. He tossed me a bandolier with apple grenades hooked on, which I caught gingerly, and then he floated in a massive footlocker.

With a flourish, he turned it over, spilling its contents all over the floor. I tip-toed around the mess, looking for something useful, but from what I could tell, this was all trash. Cigarette packs, toy cars, old hot plates, even heavy irons occupied space along the floor. I gave Jester a questioning look, but after a few minutes of intense concentration, he dumped nearly all of it into our bags.

"You being serious here, Jester? Why are we carrying all this trash around?" I said.

He started pulling the items out of his bag and showing me them. "This here? It'll fetch us 5 caps. Cigarette packs are 10 caps apiece. That iron's gotta be worth somethin' to somepony."

"Well then, why didn't you just trade with Ditzy Doo while she was here?" I had him there. See? I was already picking up on how things worked out here in the wasteland.

He opened his mouth, blinked, and then closed it again. "Ah, ponyfeathers. I knew I was forgetting something." He glowered at me as a smug smile crept across my face, which then promptly fell off as he transferred the heavy iron to my bag.

Man, me and my big mouth.

We spent the rest of the night talking tactics, which more or less amounted to me staying way out of the way and letting Jester handle enemies. Apparently, he thought I was loud and incapable of either stealth or intelligent thought or tactical awareness and would be more a liability than anything. No idea where he got that from. I would be one step to his back with my head on a swivel, using the PipBuck's Eyes Forward Sparkle to scout for foes. He said that hopefully the additional warning we'd gain from the PipBuck would offset my inexperience in the field.

We also finished packing up, making sure not to smash the food we were taking. He gifted me the pistol I had first used against the deadly scourge of Sarsaparilla bottles, which fit neatly into my jury rigged side-holster. He wanted me to take some sort of blunt melee weapon, but without magic I couldn't figure out how I'd be able to do any damage. I told him I'd gladly take a knife, but he only had the one. A sword was also out of the question, though that would have been so cool. I settled for a lead pipe with a heavy nut on the end, figuring if nothing else I could probably drop it on someone and do some damage.

With our bags fully packed, Jester set off to bed. I tossed and turned for a time, then switched over to playing around with the settings on the PipBuck. I changed the E.F.S. colors to something more my style (green!), used the inventory software to better arrange everything I was carrying, and I was making hoof-shadows with the flashlight before Jester finally yelled at me to get some sleep.

Morning came dark and abrupt. We split a box of Sugar Bombs and washed it down with more delicious Sunrise Sarsaparilla, and then headed out the door.

Jester made sure to lock up, and while his back was turned, I strapped on a bobby pin and pulled out my trusty flat head and started working on it. The click of the lock opening caught his attention while he made last minute rearrangements to his saddlebags, his facial features fighting between amusement and exasperation. With a pointed look, he locked it again and started down the trail away from the woods with me right behind.

I saw Lock Nut's hoofprints leading away to the west as we trotted on, and I also saw Ditzy's cart tracks where she landed and where she took off. With a twinge of jealousy, I thought of her wings and still couldn't figure out how she could fly with those twisted, skeletal remains. Maybe Almost Everything sold something to help ponies fly. I'd have to look into that.

We hit a fork in the road, one path leading south and one curling back towards the northeast, a wide sweeping curve that put us right at the edge of the forest. What was left of Maripony glimmered sullenly at the edge of the horizon to the east. With one last look to Jester's house, we set off down the northeast path, me keeping time and matching his hoofprints step for step.

I wasn't scared at all. Bring on the wasteland.