Clouded Judgment

by Ocean Phoenix

Rating: mature
Tags: Dark, Adventure, Crossover
Length: 9871

It's widely agreed that death is one of the worst things that can happen to a pony. Cloudy Daze knows better. With nothing to live for but his childhood friend, he must survive the hostile Equestrian Wasteland - without her.

Based on Fallout: Equestria, Clouded Judgment takes place fifty years before a heroine rises from the depths of Stable 2 to save the world.

No heroes here. No light. No security. No hope. Cloudy Daze is truly alone in the Wasteland, having had his only friend swept away at the precipice of freedom. He finds himself carried along by the currents of other, more powerful ponies - but even they are dwarfed by the ancient evils unleashed upon Equestria after the bombs fell.

This pegasus has no place in a chaotic world of kings, giants, and demons. Why, then, does he continue to live?

Cover art by the wonderfully accommodating LordLaneus! If you're reading this, mate, thanks for putting up with me! This turned out great!

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-07 06:40:09 UTC

Prologue

“Papa? How’d you an’ Mama meet?” My daughter set her cup down, fixing me with her innocent, curious gaze.

I chuckled and smiled apologetically, resting my teacup on the table with a shaking wing. I took a moment to catch my breath and responded, “Didn’t I tell you before? I could have sworn I did. Maybe… maybe…”

Clear shook her head in that cheeky way she always did, sending her braided flame-red mane dancing and jiggling around her horn. “Y’always said you and Mama grew up together as slaves, but ya never said how you guys got out!”

I was struck by a pang of guilt and looked away, locking the ancient, cracked wooden table between us with a distant stare. She was right - I had never told her anything about us. Nothing beyond the Kingdom, at least. She’d be so ashamed of me, afraid for her mother, afraid for herself. Sometimes I still worried about her mother, too. About her mind, about the things she had lost, about whether she would still love me if she knew.

A ray of warm sun beamed in through the window beside us, lighting up the table’s surface and revealing hundreds of tiny dust specks swimming through the air. She was older now, though. Goddesses, she’s older than I was way back then! Clearest could handle it. She had to hear the story someday, or her mother would lash me for being so irresponsible. I smiled again and looked back up at her, warmed by the thought.

“I suppose… um, I guess I never did. I apologize.” I bit my lip and held my breath, stalling for time. “Would you like some more tea before we begin? It… it’s a bit of a... long one.”

She rolled her big, sky-blue eyes and huffed, prompting another unrestrained smile out of me. She was so like her mother, it was uncanny! “Eh-heheh, can’t sneak anything past you, can I? Okay, okay, I’ll start…”

I sipped away the last drops of tea to wet my aging throat and steeled myself for a trip to the past. I felt shades of fear before I even opened my mouth to speak, soothing me, coaxing me to keep my mouth closed. I took one more deep breath to calm myself, dispelling the fear for one precious second, and opened my mouth - only to have fear grip me hard, twisting my stomach and sickening me to even the thought of telling the story.

Maybe I could lie? She’d probably buy it, if I told her I’d forgotten in my old age. Yes… she knew I had trouble remembering things sometimes, she’d pass it off as ‘senile ol’ Cloudy slowly losin’ his mind as he gets older!’ My guts eased and relaxed, appeased by my decision. I would lie. I’d tell her a different story, where I was ‘Cloudy Daze, the fearless pegasus who had boldly escaped from slavery and single-hoofedly slew demons, saved the world, and got the mare!’ I’d rewrite history just how I wanted it! And all it would take was one measly little lie.

To my daughter. I would lie, to my daughter… With a shock, I realized I’d been grinning victoriously at nothing while Clear gave me a concerned look. My dreams of grandeur faded into nothing, leaving me alone in the sitting room with her once more. Lie to my daughter… Her sky-blue eyes pierced my vision, and I remembered her mother. My dearest Wave. Lie to my daughter… lie to Wave.

...No. Absolutely not. For the final time, that simple word shattered my fears and brought me back to reality. No. I would not lie to her. She would hear the truth, no matter what she thought of me because of it.

A tear squeezed from my eye as I cleared my tensed throat, repressing the sudden urge to cry. “The story, yes. Right. It all began one night in the slave camp, with a terrible nightmare…”

Load Successful!

Name: Cloudy Daze

Race: Pegasus

Level: 0

Chapter 1 - Love

“When I’m with you, I feel like I could die and that would be alright...”

The Equestrian Wasteland. Even the name paints portraits of dead happiness and long lost dreams of what once was. In the one hundred-fifty years since the bombs fell, the first roots of civilization have begun to spread. Small settlements crop up from time to time, as their inhabitants try to salvage the remains of Old Equestria. More common are the raiding clans, driven to madness by the death of the world, and determined to kill whoever they can to come out on top. Society doesn’t last long with them around, as towns rise and fall almost with the rise and fall of the veiled sun.Rumors abound of lethal nightmares, hellish creatures, and unspeakable geometries inhabiting Fillydelphia. As if some ancient horror walks the land, spreading decay and pain where it treads. Few outside the bravest and least sane dare to enter this dead zone. In spite of the danger, one pony elected to create his home there. Over the years, his lone estate grew to a respectable village populated by a few dozen ponies and himself, their indisputable King. Shielded from all but the most desperate outsiders, he dreams of a restored Equestria in relative peace.

        Somber darkness filled my vision and mind, stifling my thoughts. It was a lot like a nice, dreamless nap, except it wasn’t dreamless at all. I was alive - I think ‘lucid’ is the word. Lucid and alive, in a universe of total nothingness. I flexed my wings and lifted a front hoof. Yep, still there. A peculiar, sickening sort of excitement snuck in at the edges of my awareness, but for what or why, I couldn’t tell.

        I took in my surroundings, and, in doing so, the darkness melted away like rain trickling down a window, revealing four unmarked beige walls complete with floor and ceiling. Just enough room to stand with maybe a head to spare; though, being a fairly tall pegasus, I guess the room would’ve held a smaller pony just fine.

        My gut churned, and with an inaudible mental pop, the room flickered. In its place appeared a lovely, upscale sort of bedroom. The bed looked just so plush and inviting, I wanted to throw myself upon it immediately. A few sets of low-burning candles provided a hint of romance to the air, lighting the room just enough to get me excited - and the floor, the walls, the curtains hung luxuriously over nothing, everything felt so dusky and… sexual, I guess. So it’s going to be one of those kinda dreams, huh? Never had one where I could do things before! Giddy with anticipation, I glided onto the knee-high bed, enveloping myself in covers and awaiting my special mare for the night.

        As soon as I thought of her, she appeared: my best friend, my only friend, the nicest mare I’d ever known, Wave Horizon. The smell of love washed over me, filling me with all kinds of crazy ideas that made me blush, even in my sleep. Her damp, wild blue mane, normally spiked and clinging to her like it was charged with her own electricity, flowed down her fiery orange neck and over her ears. That one sky blue spike, the one that always got in her face, tamed and pulled neatly to the side, framing her perfectly round blue eyes with its perfect curving. She chewed her lip softly as she walked toward me, watching me, thinking all kinds of things about me and how much of a mess I probably looked like. None of it mattered here, not in my dream. We would have a wonderful time together, just the two of us, and the real her would never know…

        She was beside me on the bed now, pulling me close. She breathed out, and I breathed in. It was so perfect. I felt almost cheated; there was no way, this couldn’t be happening, I… even in my dreams, I almost couldn’t accept it. She nuzzled my chin with a giggle and a little squirm, setting me to full attention. It was now or never. I had to take my chance while I was still asleep, before I woke up and ruined it all! I closed my eyes and leaned in to kiss her (even in my dreams, there was no way I’d just jump on her likethat). She tasted so sweet and sexy, just like I’d always imagined! Her tongue danced with mine, sharing our most intimate little secrets without saying a word, oh, I could just melt in happiness! And in a dream… how pathetic.

I pulled away and opened my eyes.

        No bed, I was laying in sand.

        No candles, an eerie blue light permeated the air.

        No Wave, I was alone.

        Alone in a desert wasteland. I buried my head on the verge of tears. I should’ve known I’d mess it up somehow… But I could still taste her, I could still remember it! Pulling my head out of the sand, I stared up into the abyssal sky and shouted my happiness to the heavens, hoof-pumping and cheering like a fool. I didn’t completely screw things up! I’d try again tomorrow ni-

        A rush of vacuum, and the air went dark. The endless plane of sand towered above me, forming impassable walls in a circle all around. Another rush, and a vast equine figure appeared before me: the very form of a Goddess Herself, shrouded in darkness. I cowered and bowed before Her, hoping She wouldn’t punish me for something.

        She bellowed into my mind with a thousand voices, each layered over one another like a true Goddess of all ponies, “CLOUDY DAZE. YOU DISAPPOINT ME.” Her disdain cut my heart. I began to sob, fearing the worst.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE REALITY IN YOUR DREAMS? WE ARE THE GODDESS OF DREAMS! YOU HURT, AND YOU TAKE, AND YOU DO AS YOU PLEASE TO YOUR FRIEND! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!” Total blackness swallowed my vision, drowning out her terrifying form. I pleaded, and begged, and sobbed for forgiveness, incoherently crying that I’d never try to hurt Wave again, I never would!

        She scoffed at me, like I was nothing more than a pest to Her, “INSIGNIFICANT WRETCH. WE CARE NOT FOR YOUR WHINING. YOUR SLEEP SHALL BE CURSED WITH ENDLESS NIGHTMARE, AS PROPER ATONEMENT FOR YOUR CRIME.”

I craned my neck, trying to look at Her, trying to plead with Her for mercy, but my prayers were met by the Night Goddess’ infinite darkness. She crushed me, reducing me to sand, and then I felt nothing more.

“REFLECT ON YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS IN WAKEFULNESS, CLOUDY DAZE. YOU ARE RELEASED!”

A final blast of cold air, and I awoke, damp from face to fetlock in cool sweat. A hard ache stabbed in my chest as I slowly took control of my breathing.

        In my somewhat dazed state, I barely registered a waking pony immediately beside me. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, like a filly woken from her nap. My stunned mind distantly registered that I’d woken her, but I was too immersed in waking up myself to realize it. Was that Princess Luna Herself? And why do I feel so… horrible? My orange friend leaned on her shoulder, blinking away the sleep from her eyes.

        “Cloudy…? What’s up?” Any other pony would’ve sounded as good as I felt, but her voice made everything better somehow. Warm and calming, but also light, and with this cute lilt to it that just made me want to hug her tight! Not that I’d ever do that, she’d freak out…

        I realized with a start that I’d forgotten to reply to her while I obsessed over the sound of her voice. Fumbling for words, I mumbled, “Uh, um, nothing. Just can’t sleep.”

        She sighed; I could feel it tickling my fur, like the breath of an angel. I didn’t know why she put up with me. I was always doing stuff like this, like waking her up in the middle of night, or spraining my ankle over a crack in the ground, or getting picked on by the other serfs. She would’ve had things so much easier if I hadn’t been there to cause her trouble. She wouldn’t have tried to escape, either.

        She adjusted her position on our mat, trying to get comfortable against the solid floor beneath us. “That’s not like you, Cloudy,” she cooed, “I never seen ya wake up in the middle of the night before. Is your back okay?”

        It wasn’t. The day before, we’d been tasked with all the usual serf duties: keeping things clean, catering to the knights and nobles, reciting our oaths of loyalty to King Nero, and so on. That day, though, two of the knights asked for the same bottle of water. This almost never happened. We had so many bottles in storage I thought it’d be impossible, but that was the day something finally went wrong in the Kingdom. Sir Prancealot asked for it first, and Sir Bredsaddle asked second, so I figured the latter wouldn’t mind if I gave him a different bottle. They were identical, anyway, matching labels and all. I had delved into the cool storage room below the mansion, retrieved their bottles, and brought them to the knights at their posts on either side of the Kingdom.

        It was customary in the Kingdom for a serf to stand by until dismissed, in case their master needed them for another task. Sir Bredsaddle somehow knew that I’d given him the wrong bottle! Before I could even ask him if he enjoyed his water, and if there was anything else I could do for him, he whirled around, bringing his baton down on me with enough force to send me to the ground. He screamed, and raved, and foamed at the mouth, laying into me with the volume to make my fur stand on end. I’m sure I would have been hurt by the things he said if I wasn’t already incoherent, crying from pain and fear.

        So that was yesterday. It was unusual for a serf to be hurt within our Kingdom; the knights treated us much better than the slaves we’d heard so much of in the rest of the world. We were rarely beaten, never starved, always given a place to sleep, and certainly never forced to endure whatever atrocities a sicker master might’ve forced upon us. We even got to live with our families, for the most part.

        Still, my back ached, but not enough to wake me up, I didn’t think. I shook my head weakly. “No... um, I don’t, that’s not it. I don’t think. I think I had a nightmare.” I shrugged lamely. Only after I’d said it did the realization hit me: I woke her up because of a stupid nightmare. I wasn’t even in pain, I was fine!

        “Oh, a nightmare?” She yawned, and I couldn’t help but smile a little. She was so cute. “That bad, huh? ...Would it help ya to talk about it?” In the dark, I could barely make out her mouth forming a gentle smile.

        “Um, no… I don’t even remember what it was about. I’ll be okay, Wave.” I did my best impression of a genuine grin, despite my inner pegasus screaming at me for being such a weakling. A stupid nightmare that I couldn’t even remember.

        She huffed, shooting a jolt of energy up my spine as her breath washed over my fur again. “Was it ‘cause of that stupid Bred-shithead-whatever? C’mon, you remember when I got hit the first time, I cried like a li’l filly. Nightmares for weeks. Remember?”

        “Yeah, I do. I promise, I really don’t remember the dream. I’m sorry.” I pulled the rag covering us both a little higher, trying in vain to hide as much of my bulk as I could. Nervous habit, I guess.

        She made a funny little sound, like a stifled laugh, and reached a hoof forward to squeeze mine. “Luna gave you a good one tonight, didn’t she? Eh, eh?” I froze, once again finding myself the victim of her innuendo. She’d never know... “It was the mare in the shack over, huh? Ya know, really seems like she’s got some experience with that horn-a hers… might be interesting, hmm?” I flushed, struck as always by her audacity. That other mare was probably four times my age, while Wave and I were just two years apart! Why, out of all the other mares in the Kingdom, would she pick that one -

Ohhhh. My face reached a new height of warmth, as I realized for the umpteenth time that she’d been just pulling my feathers. Her smile evolved into an evil grin - it was like she knew she’d tricked me again, like she always did. I could feel my ears clasp the sides of my head in embarrassment. “Oh… um, no. I really don’t remember.” I did my best attempt at shrinking under the covers, trying to hide from that playful smile.

        “Aww, it’s okay, Cloudy,” she drawled, retracting her hoof with another yawn, “Maybe you’ll tell me tomorrow.” She settled onto her back again with a mumbled, “G’night,” and silence filled our shack once again.

        She always knew just how to tweak my feathers. Sometimes I could swear she was trying to get me to admit I had feelings for her. No matter what, she always got me to blush. Nothing was sacred, except the nobles, of course. She even messed with the other serfs sometimes.

“Need a hoof with that unit, Salt? Hahah!”

“Hey Scripts, is it true what they say ‘bout earth ponies? I dunno ‘bout you but pegasi are tiny!”

“Daisy? Mind lettin’ me sleep with you tonight? ...Whaddaya mean ‘why?’ Lovin’ first, questions later!”

I could never figure her out.

        I stared at the ceiling for some time. My mind wandered, from the nightmare, to the tales of the Princesses, to old Equestria, to the Kingdom, to the events of yesterday, to Wave… No matter where my thoughts led me, they always came back to her. I guessed that was fair enough; we’d been given our own shack away from all the other serfs. Just the two special pegasi, sleeping all by ourselves with a single guard, away from anypony else who might hurt us. The other serfs didn’t really like us. We were abominations, outcasts, exiles from our homeland above the clouds to which we could never return. None of our parents were pegasi, that is. My mother was an earth pony, like Wave’s father; while her mother was a unicorn. According to my mother, my father had been a pegasus, but he’d been killed shortly after I was born for trying to start a serf uprising. He’d always been ,“Too unpredictable, like lightning,” she’d said, so the masters had to take care of him…

        So we were abominations. Two pegasi who should have been earth ponies or unicorns. Most of the serfs got along okay, I thought, from what I could see when they weren’t actually talking to me or Wave. I guess we just didn’t belong.

        Our parents told us stories about the old Equestria when we were foals. Tales about how the pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies had once lived together under a beautiful blue sky, playing, working together, and being happy - without serfs. Back in the old days, everypony was a master, and everypony got along like best friends under their Princesses, Celestia and Luna. Sometimes, when I finished my work before Wave, I would come back to the shack and just cry into our bed for a while… Why couldn’t we have all that? Why did everything have to change and become dull and gray, and terrible and terrifying? Back then, there were no scary raider ponies haunting the world outside the Kingdom. Back then, there was no such thing as radiation. Back then, I wouldn’t have had to keep to the ground for fear of being shot down by my own kind - either above the clouds, or below.

        Back then, I could have been happy.

        “Cloudy? You still up?” Wave’s voice cut my trance with a startled gasp.

        “Oh! Yeah…”

        “D’you ever think about leaving?”

        I stared in her direction incredulously, unable to make out much more than a shock of bright blue and some indistinct orange fur in the dark. Of course I did, I thought about that all the time! Among other things, like my father, why we were pegasi, and going back to old Equestria with her…

        “Y-yeah… sometimes. Why?” I swallowed hard; hopefully the guard just outside wouldn’t hear us talking about this, especially after the events of yesterday.

        “I dunno.” She paused; I half hoped that’d be the end of it. The other half yearned for more. “Maybe we could try it once. Y’know, be free again, live off the land, do what we wanna do. Go on adventures ‘n’ stuff!” She poked my shoulder, and I tensed up reflexively. She sounded so excited, it was hard to believe the guard couldn’t hear.

        “A-adventures? Out there? But, aren’t there monsters? And no food, and radiation, and raiders, and there’s no clean water, and… m-monsters?” We’d all heard the stories of horrible creatures from forgotten times, twisted and malformed by the outside world. In old Equestria, they were kept in check by the Princesses and their magical prisons. But today, now? Nothing kept them chained. They roamed free, laying waste indiscriminately, horrors beyond imagination devouring the earth itself. If we ever left the Kingdom, we’d be stuck with… them.

        “Yeah, maybe. But maybe they’re just stories?” She shuffled around, sitting up beside me. “I mean c’mon, you never actually seen a monster, right? What if they’re all just made up? Like, they’re just trying to scare us into stickin’ around?”

        “I don’t know… You really think our parents would lie to us? They wouldn’t… would they?”

        “Not on purpose. Y’know what I think? I think ol’ King Nero lied to them. Think about it: they been here at least since you were born, right? And you’re older ‘n me, so that’s… a long time! A long, long time that they been getting brainwashed by these kooks! So wouldn’t it make sense that they’re just tellin’ us what they think is true, but it’s not really true? ...Does that make sense?”

        I shrugged, and sunk a little further under the sheet. I really wished she’d lower her volume a bit. “Um, maybe. I don’t know. What if we got caught? They’d catch us, there’s so many knights…”

        “Nah, nah, see, I’ve been watchin’ ‘em. They don’t look in here, they’re always watchin’ out there. Nopony tries to break outta here, ‘cause everypony’s so scared of runnin’ away, ‘cause Nero’s been spreading all those stories about monsters! It’s the perfect setup! They don’t got to keep ponies in, ‘cause everypony keeps themselves in! Ain’t it obvious?”

        I winced at her casual use of the King’s name; if the pony outside heard her say that, we’d be beaten for sure. “W-Wave, can you, um…?” I motioned downward with a hoof, hoping she’d get the message.

        “What? I can’t hear ya.” She wasn’t even trying to whisper.

        “B-be quieter, please? I don’t want him…” I trailed off, forgetting to speak over my panicking mind.

        “Cloudy, I got no idea what you’re tryin’ to say. Look, all I’m sayin’ is, we could totally get out! And it’d be super easy! I been thinking about it for the past couple weeks, and I think I gotta good battle plan set up. So first we’d sneak past the guard - right? He’s usually asleep by this time, so that should be easy. Then, we...” Her voice became a feminine buzz, going on about some plan she had to escape that’d probably never work.

Much as I liked her, she kept counting on both of us getting out - and there’s no way a pony of my size would be able to sneak around like a pony of her size. So, she carried on while I tried my best to listen for the guard outside. There was no way he hadn’t woken up by now, but I couldn’t hear him moving around. Maybe if I just didn’t say anything, she would realize how loud she was talking?

        “Cloudy? Hey! Ding-dong! Didja catch all that?” She bopped me in the side of the head, shaking me to my senses. “Equestria to Cloudy!” She giggled, oblivious to the danger sleeping just outside our door.

        “Yes, but, um, could you be a little quieter? You might wake up the guard…”

        “Oh, him? He’s not on duty today. They shuffled the guards around to the other shacks, guess somepony got in a fight or somethin’. Didn’t I tell ya?”

        I couldn’t believe my luck! A wave of relief swept through me, and I sighed away all the stress that had built up over the past few minutes. Thank the Goddesses for that! After I took a moment to recuperate, I breathed, “No, I must’ve forgotten. Wow, that’s really lucky! Eh-heheh!”

        She laughed with me, clearly enjoying the moment. “Yup! We could make as much noise as we wanted, and nopony’d hear us! Hahah!”

        I chuckled nervously, privy - this time - to her tendency to make me uncomfortable. She doesn’t have that evil grin this time. Maybe she’s serious? Or am I reading too much into it? Memories of intimacy, kissing, and sensual nuzzling flooded my brain with a jolt: the smell of love, fresh in the air. Did that all really happen, and I’d just forgotten? But when…?

        She reached forward to squeeze my hoof, her bright blue eyes perfectly visible at such short range. “I ever tell ya you’re my best friend, Cloudy? I mean, yeah, there ain’t a whole lotta selection in here. But, still.” A smile, the one from before. I could almost feel her nuzzling under my chin, just like before. I could feel her breath, soft on my fur. I felt like I could just shut down. What should I do? WHAT DO I DO?!

Still holding my leg hostage, she cleared her throat and sat up unusually straight and proper. “Fillies and gentlecolts! I hereby decree, as High King of all Nerotica - what, ya think mares can’t be kings? Fuck off! - Sir Cloudy Daze and Madame Wave Horizon are bestest friends ever! And if ya disagree, well, fuck you!” She curtseyed to an invisible audience, still sitting beside me in our pathetic excuse for a bed.

        As she withdrew her hoof from mine, I couldn’t help but applaud with a foalish grin. “That sounded way better than any of King Nero’s speeches! Do more, please!”

        She nodded and chuckled, “Sure! Lemme just think up an-” Her grin froze, her eyes going wide.

        “Wave?” I followed her rapidly withering gaze across the room, where a baton illuminated with orange light broke the darkness. A matching horn followed shortly after.

        The guard.

        I rolled toward my best friend, trying to simultaneously fake sleep and hide from the rapidly approaching hoofsteps. There was no hope for her. She was sitting up beside me, eyes locked with the guard’s. I could only stare helplessly into her blank flank as he approached, fighting myself over whether nononononono or oh Celestia please no was more appropriate. Wave took a breath, opening her mouth to speak, but was immediately silenced.

        “Quiet. Treason carries a deadly price.” Cold and sharp, the steel of an executioner.

        My friend tensed up as the baton came down, heavy with single purpose. I watched her hind legs squirm in agony under the flurry of blows, each one accompanied by a tortured shriek from my best friend. I watched her through two half-open slits, sparing myself the details, my imagination whipping up an image much worse than any reality. Again and again she spasmed, writhing out of my pane of view, until I stared at an empty wall where she’d once lay beside me.

        She cried only one word, “Please!”

        Our killer answered, “No.” We were both going to die.

        Something broke. Before I knew what was happening, before I could think to stop myself from throwing my body to certain death, I stood up. He had chased Wave to the other side of the room, where she cowered in the corner, trying in vain to shield herself with bruised and bloody wings.

        An instant later, I tackled him to the ground. I thought I did anyway; nothing seemed to flow normally. It was like I was living in a slide-show instead of a movie.

        Next slide, I planted a hoof into his face.

        Next slide, a flash of orange light, and a dull throb in the back of my skull.

        Next slide, I fell off of him. His baton rained down powerful blows upon my chest with agonizing strength.

        The slide-show ended abruptly. Our killer fell still beside me, weapon clattering harmlessly to the floor. My best friend stood above his body, beaten and gasping for air. Her beautiful, perfect hair and fur - she looked then more like a starved animal than the pony I knew.

        That is, until she grinned at me.

        Shuddering and shaking, she sat beside me on the cold, solid floor of our home. She stared at me infinitely with an expression I’d never seen before, grinning and shivering as fresh blood trickled down her forehead. Her breathing eased out as I counted time by how much my body ached - I can definitely feel a bruise here, one or two there, oh buck it, they’re everywhere - and she took a deep breath, sighing all the tension from her body.

        “So that’s step one. Didn’t really mean for it ta go like that, but I guess it’ll do. Ready?”

        I looked up at her, having been distracted by something on her side. “R-ready?” I had a looming suspicion what for, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth: I’d never be ready, not for this. I kind of like living here in the Kingdom, it’s not so bad, we could just hide the body and never speak of it again…

        She nodded, grin folding into a resolute smirk. “Ready.” Trembling somewhat, she rose to her hooves, leaving our killer’s body behind her. We’re dead, we’re so dead… Left to choose between death with Wave and death alone, I followed suit, shaking out the tightness in my joints. She nudged open the crude wooden door separating our home from the outside, and trotted out.

        I stared at the former guard’s body for a few seconds, confused. I could remember so little of what had happened. It was almost like waking up from a dream. Wouldn’t be the first time tonight… He was still. I didn’t even know his name. Just another one of the non-serfs I’d never spoken to. I felt a cold chill; here was this pony right in front of me, definitely dead, and I didn’t even care. Maybe I was even a little happy. It looked like he’d roughed up Wave pretty badly. I shook my head regretfully and walked away, hoping the Goddesses could forgive me for being so cruel.

        I stopped myself before leaving home for good and snagged a pair of ragged jackets from a hook on the wall. It was going to be a long, cold night.

        Stepping into the piercing cold air, I passed my friend the jacket in her size. Mine would never fit her, not with any amount of folding or scrunching. She gave me a knowing smile, as if to say thanks for remembering the little details. Stuff that usually slipped her mind. Bundled up as best we could, we trekked into the total darkness.

The journey across our little courtyard passed like a waking dream. It felt so unreal, mentally saying goodbye to everypony I knew. When Wave talked about escape, I’d always imagined everypony coming along, like a great big happy party of ponies taking a vacation. Or, at least a heartfelt goodbye. Not this, not like this… I tried to stay focused, taking the distance one step at a time. One step away from my family, away from my home and my life, at a time...

We crunched down the gravel path without incident. I felt a weight somewhere in the back of my skull, like the events of the past - what, minutes? - were starting to catch up with me. No time for that now. If I fell apart there and got us caught, she’d never forgive me. We’d probably be killed, and it’d be all over.

        Some dark part of me couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all. If we got found out, our families would just find a body in our shack and two more a few yards away. No explanation, no reason. Pure madness. I suppressed a tremble and hustled up beside Wave.

        We reached the end of the serf path, where it branched off in two directions: up the hill toward the manor house, and down the hill to a rickety scrap metal gate flanked by two guard towers. Behind that gate laid freedom… Come to think of it, escaping seemed pretty easy! With the almost total cover of night, even we with our brightly-colored plumages would be fairly hard to see.

We skirted the rough edge of the noisy gravel path, keeping our eyes locked on the towers before us. As much as they probably couldn’t see us, I couldn’t see them either. If Wave could, she made no indication of it. I made a little game out of counting the number of times her velvety blue tail wagged while we descended the slope. I got to one hundred fifty-three before I realized what I was doing and gave up in a fit of embarrassment. Besides, the gate was looming just in front of us, and I needed to concentrate.

        She wasted no time in taking off, just enough to clear the top of the gate. Much as we’d been drilled not to fly on pain of having our wings clipped, we were already escaping, so it probably wouldn’t be too much worse to add ‘flying’ to our list of crimes. ‘Flying,’ right below ‘murder’ and ‘running away.’

        Murder. I felt a little jolt as I watched her tail disappear over the wall. It really was just like in stories. I was running away with an outlaw, and that made me an accomplice. Just don’t think about it, Cloudy…

With a deep breath, I took off after her. No shouting, no gunfire, nothing. In seconds, I crested the wall and dropped down right beside her on the dusty, pebbly earth.

        We shared a grim smile. Well, mine probably looked pretty grim, but she looked ecstatic. She lilted in that glance-drawing way of hers, “We did it. Tha’s it. Easy, heh!”

        “W-where do we go?”

        She shook her head and dropped her voice, “Outta here, first. Ain’t no way we’re gettin’ caught now.”

        A chonk, and a rush of wind from above me. My pulse spiked and I jumped: they were shooting at us! But that didn’t sound like gunfire… I heard a distant swear as something impacted the ground a few feet from my hooves.

        “Shit! Go, Cloudy!” Wave bolted immediately. She galloped out of sight, becoming one with the darkness. I took off after her, using her crunching on the path to guide me.

        I caught a glance of what almost hit me as I fled. It looked like a slave collar. The Kingdom never used slave collars.

        I rifled through my memories to try and summon up a map of the area I was blindly sprinting through. Okay, um, there’re mountains, and it’s kinda hilly, and curvy, and there’s slopes on the right, and it drops off to the left… few rocks, some plants? There’s the crater, um, down there... Here comes the uphill bit, I think… Sure enough, I heard my friend’s hoofsteps begin to rise as we ventured further into the hills. The path slowly smoothed out as we ran, transitioning from rough packed dirt to the cool sheer stone of a valley ridge.

        We slowed to a canter as the path became more treacherous. The cold air bit hard with each breath, wearing me out faster than any serf labor ever had. I caught up to Wave slowly and could make out her teeth chattering in the sudden chill. Without our bodies pumping to keep us running for our lives, it quickly became apparent that we wouldn’t last long in the mountains. My jacket was some comfort in the milder clime of the Kingdom, but up here it became like paper.

        I noticed with some surprise that I was just barely able to see her vivid orange coat even through the darkness. And those shocks of electric blue hair… either my eyes were adjusting to the blackness, or it was much later in the night than I’d thought. I trotted up beside her, keeping a foot or so between us.

        We shared a glance, tacitly agreeing that we were both starting to flag. “Guess it’s… bit harder ta… ta run away, than I thought... huh?” She grinned weakly at me, her smile piercing the gloom.

        I nodded uncertainly as we powered on. The total silence weighed heavily upon me, breeding all kinds of boogeymen in the outcrops around us. I’d heard of places where the earth seemed to be dead… even still, I wasn’t prepared for it. Nothing moved except me and Wave. It was like being stuck in time. I didn’t even know if we were still being followed. I didn’t even know if we’d been followed to begin with! Only my friend kept me rooted in reality; she never would have ran if we hadn’t been shot at. It definitely happened. They were after us, this was not a nightmare.

        This was real.

        The path began to narrow after an indescribable amount of time. My hooves were aching from the solid impacts and my legs still cried for rest. Wave hadn’t said a word since we’d slowed, only marched ahead with that same endless, shaking pace. On the bright side, I could now see the darker blue in her mane, as well as some of the surrounding landscape - or lack thereof.

        We were walking along a slim shelf cut into the side of the mountain. A quick glance up told me we had a long way to go to the clouds, if we’d wanted to go that way. A glance to my left promised a long fall, followed by a quick end. Freezing by this point in the mountain air, I cleared my throat and mumbled, “Where’re we going?”

        Shivering and chattering, she shot back, “There’s c-caves in the mountains. Should b’able ta l-live up ‘ere once we find a nice warm spot.”

        “W-what… what if we never find one?”

        She stopped. I could hear her teeth knocking together. I wished I could have given her my size; it took a lot more than that to freeze a pony built like me. “How ‘bout we do a l-li’l flying, huh?” She pointed over the side of the cliff toward the hills below. “We g-glide down there an’ get outta this crazy c-cold bullshit. How’s that sound?”

        I tensed up at the mention of flight and drew a quick breath that immediately chilled my throat, sending me into a coughing fit. Flying would make us easy targets for anypony who might be after us, not to mention the pegasi in the clouds. Supposedly they lived way up above the mountains, and would swoop down and kill anything that tried to fly near their eyrie. Trying to glide around up here was tantamount to suicide.

        “Um, Wave? What about the… the cloud ponies?” I swallowed hard, trying to get the chill out of my mouth.

        She tutted and stared down the cliffside. “S’either that or we f-freeze ta death. Er, well, I do anyway. An’ I don’t f-feel like becoming a p-pega-popsicle up ‘ere, so I’m going! Ya with me? C’monnnn!”

        I swallowed again, trying to will my throat to unclench itself. I could have cried if it wasn’t so cold… Despite myself, I nodded and made a noise that would hopefully communicate, “Sure,” to her. No matter what, I’d go where she went. Death by flying monster ponies was one thing, but freezing to death all alone after watching her get killed by flying monster ponies? I didn’t want to go down that road.

        “Okay. It’ll jus’ be a quick glide, m-more like a f-float. I see a nice l-li’l hill down there, aim for the top-a that. One, t-two…” She leapt off the edge before I could confirm where I was going, soaring across the dark to some invisible spot in the distance. I jumped off after her, pumping my frosted wings to keep up with my only guide through the blackness.

        I had to summon every bit of will in my pathetic body to resist the whipping cold. There’s a good reason we don’t fly, Wave! Through the clamoring wind, I again imagined packs of roving predators hunting us through the sky. It’s a good thing Wave did all the doing; she wasn’t afraid of anything! Definitely nothing like me.

        Miraculously, she dropped into a landing posture and touched down without a sound. I landed beside her, shaking and trembling far worse than I had in the mountains.

        “Woooo! Hahahahaah! Stuck the landing, eh Cloudy?” she cheered, flaring her wings. I nodded.

        “Alright, okay. Jus’ down thattaway’s a little hole in the ground, see it?” She sidled up against me, pointing off into the gloom. I shook my head. Why did she always have to touch me?

        Her shoulder rubbed up against mine in a warm shrug. “Ehh, I’ll show ya! C’mon!” She tore away from me and jogged down the hill, leaving me to chase after.

        We shortly reached a cliff hanging over a hole in the hillside, just large enough for me to walk through comfortably. She dove down without stopping. Once I’d carefully worked my way inside, we settled down at the back of the musty cave. A few bulbous, blue-glowing mushrooms served as great beds, which we took advantage of without a second thought. Certainly beat the sodden, mulchy cave floor.

        I couldn’t keep my eyes off the entrance mere feet away. The dim morning light - that’s what I’d determined, anyway - revealed the unnatural glow of the Fillydelphia Crater in the distance. At least now I had some idea of where we were… Hopefully, nopony could see us among the mushrooms. Oh who am I kidding, we stick out like a couple of sore ankles. I looked over my own off-white plumage with a sigh.

        My focus shifted to Wave. She’d slumped on her belly on one of the fungi, her mane draped over her eyes so cutely… with a little shock, I tried to put my eyes somewhere else. I probably seem really creepy, maybe I’ll just look somewhere else. Goddesses, Cloudy, don’t look back there, that’s even worse! What are you doing, you stupid pervert?

        Wait. Her flank - she had something on her flank. Averting my gaze to the muddy wall above her, I whispered, “Wave?”

        Her head turned slightly to face me, an ear perking up. “Huhn? ‘Sup?”

        “You have something, um, on you…”

        She wiggled around, struggling to look herself over without getting off the makeshift cushion. “Swear ta Luna! If this place got hide beetles, I’m-a just lose it!”

        “It’s, uh, on your side. Back a little…”

        “Wha? Oh, back there? ...Hey yeah, I do got somethin’ on me.” She rubbed at it to no result, and gasped. “Cloudy, I think I finally got my mark! My cutie mark! D’ya see it? What’s it look like, I wanna know!”

        I was afraid of that. In the glow of the mushrooms, it looked like a black splotch. It hardly looked like anything. “I can’t really see… maybe let’s just wait until morning?”

        She groaned but relaxed out on her fungus in spite of herself. “Yeah, I guess. Soon as you can see, you tell me though, ‘kay?”

        “Okay,” I intoned. I couldn’t help a smile; she wouldn’t mind me looking her over if that’s what she told me to do, right? I self-consciously cleared the creepy smile and kept up my watch, feeling a little better than before. She finally got her cutie mark. Hope it’s better than mine.

        Light came slowly. I couldn’t sleep even if I’d wanted to on account of all the madness of the past few hours. I really wished I could remember what that stupid dream was about that got me so worked up. Thankfully, it seemed my mind was too occupied to think about the bad things that had happened. Those memories became just a few more bits I’d swept away, never to be  considered again.

        I poked at my own cutie mark as the dusk cleared out from the sky. A plain white cloud on off-white fur; boring, like me. I’d gotten it one night when Rusty Chamber, one of the other serfs, tried to attack Wave. He had a history of getting too close to the mares, so I’d figured it would only be a matter of time until he tried to hurt my friend. I had prepared for that day. Wave had had a long day of work and was too tired to defend herself. I had to help her. I walked up to Rusty thinking I’d say something brave for once. Maybe even push him down or slug him in the jaw, that’d teach him!

        Nope. He kicked me in the face, broke my jaw, and ran away. I didn’t even get to say any of the stuff I’d had planned out. I guess I did help her, but I’d kind of hoped it wouldn’t hurt so much. She took care of me while I got better, as usual, and in a few days things were back to normal again - except for the cloud on my flank.

Wow, that sounds even lamer in hindsight than it did in my head. I guess the cloud’s supposed to mean I’m soft and can take a lot of punishment. It’s definitely true, I’ve had my fair share of beatings. And Wave sometimes says my fur’s soft, so I guess that fits just fine.

Remembering my responsibility, I looked over at my friend again. Her cutie mark still looked like a black splotch with a few spikes sticking off it. Kind of like a cartoon sun, but completely black. Ugly, too. It looked downright evil. I laid there in silence, not wanting to wake her to tell her how unsettling her cutie mark looked. Honestly, who’d want to hear that their cutie mark is a nasty black spiky ball thing?

        She roused some time later as I was examining the top of one of my cushions. I immediately broke from my investigation and watched her slowly come to. Oh, she’s so adorable when she’s just waking up. The way she flicks her ears and squirms around, the way she hums and moans softly - I stopped myself abruptly. This was no time to get trapped in a fantasy; we were still on the run, and I still had a job to do.

        I whispered, “Wave? You awake?” even though it was obvious she was waking up. Stupid questions, as usual.

        She rolled onto her side, facing me with a few lances of mane hanging over her perfect blue eyes. “Yup. You?” She smiled, a beautiful tired morning smile that filled me with happiness and safety. As long as she was with me, I’d be okay.

        “Yeah.” I hesitated. I really didn’t want to tell her about her cutie mark, even though she asked me to. I figured I’d just wait for her to ask -

        “So, get a good look at my flank yet?” Her smile broke into a crazy grin, giggling and covering her mouth with a hoof while the blood rushed to my face. I looked away, mouth clamped tightly shut. I couldn’t say anything like this.

        “I’m kiddin’, I’m kiddin’!” She giggled again and wiggled closer to me. “But seriously, what’s it look like? I wanna know what you think before I look at it an’ spoil the surprise!”

        I glanced at her fearfully. My mind raced to come up with things I could say that would sound okay without telling a lie. I decided to go with a compromise. “It’s, um. It’s a sun.” I tried to smile through my tensed-up face.

        She raised an eyebrow. She’d seen right through me, oh Goddesses… “It’s a sun? Cloudy, I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re lyin’. It ain’t no sun. Hay, I coulda told ya that last night. What’s it really, c’mon, tell me!”

        “It’s… it’s black.”

        “Like the night sky?”

        “Yeah...”

        “That it?”

        “Yeah…”

        “Well that’s a rip-off. Not, like, a shinin’ gemstone, or a silver tongue? Hey, actually, that’d probably look pretty nice on me. You sure it’s a black blob?”

        “Yeah…”

        She twisted around and looked at her flank. She sighed and muttered, “Well, shit. Guess we can’t all win, huh?” I shrugged and looked back outside. “Ya think these things’re edible?”

        I shrugged again. I was getting pretty hungry, but I wasn’t about to go eating something that glowed bright blue. As it turned out, not only were the mushrooms edible, they were also deliciously sweet, and they stained our mouths neon blue. A few minutes and some incredibly bold experimentation by Wave later, we’d managed to consume one whole mushroom. And I was stuffed.

        Once we’d let our breakfast settle, we decided to get our bearings up above. From the hilltop over the cave, I could see the Fillydelphia ruins, the mountains we’d traversed to our left, and endless open Wasteland all behind us. No Kingdom in sight: perfect for running away. We had all the food we’d need for a while in the cave with us, a place to sleep, and no crazy monster ponies trying to kill us. In fact, we hadn’t run into a single monster since we got out of the Kingdom. Come to think of it, the only thing that had tried to hurt us was actually in the Kingdom…

        Wave suddenly jumped and hissed, “Get inside!” Leave it to me to think there’s no monsters in the Wasteland. We hid back in the cave, crouching down on the muddy floor and using the mushrooms as shields.

        “What’d you see?” I asked after a few moments of tense silence.

        “Ponies. Maybe raiders. They had stuff with ‘em, like guns, comin’ down from the mountains. I think it’s the cloud ponies finally catchin’ up with us,” she breathed. “If they’re after us, they’re gonna find us in ‘ere. Place is real easy to see in the dark.” I didn’t bother questioning her on that one, but I had to agree that an orange pony and a white pony couldn’t camouflage very well in a blue cave.

        “Should we run away?”

        She bit her lip. “I dunno. They’re definitely gonna see us if they keep comin’ this way though, they were headed right for us. Luna, they mighta even seen us up on the hilltop. Fuck…”

        I kept my eyes locked on the entrance. I didn’t dare move. I just stared out at the distant ruins of Fillydelphia, inspecting and re-inspecting every crook and crack of the long dead buildings.

        Wave stood slowly and rotated around to the entrance. She put her head up against the wall and perked up an ear, probably trying to hear if anypony was coming. Seconds turned into minutes, both of us frozen in our respective positions.

        Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Silence, and the quiet in-and-out of breathing. I thought I might fall asleep if our lives weren’t in danger. If our lives weren’t maybe in danger.

She turned to me and nodded, motioning for me to follow her. We exited the cave carefully, keeping a constant look-out for anything sneaking around beside us. Her focus was locked onto the hills an indescribable distance away. Had we really come that far in just one night? It seemed like an infinite, lifeless field of gray.

Something caught my eye near where Wave was looking. Something moved up there, I could have sworn… My friend gasped as a gray-and-brown clump of bodies charged down the side of the hill towards us. She’d been right; they were coming for us!

I choked, “W-Wave?”

She bolted without looking back and screamed, “Cloudy, run!”

I broke into a gallop, drawing on my newfound strength from that morning’s massive breakfast. The lifeless plain between us and the ruins of Fillydelphia gradually crawled shut, and I started seeing smaller structures before the city. A bridge, a ruined building, another ruined building, another bridge… it had really been a full-fledged city at some point in time. The name “Fillydelphia Crater” did it no justice at all.

        As we neared the first bridge, I noticed I couldn’t see Wave beside me anymore. A quick look back showed her a few feet behind and slowing down significantly. She caught my eye and shot a hard glance my way. She must’ve known I’d try to stop for her. Don’t be stupid, Cloudy. She’ll be fine as long as I don’t slow down and get us both caught. I charged on forward, aiming for the first bridge. Maybe if we got spotted we’d be able to lose them by going under the bridge… if we got spotted. A paranoid chill ran down my spine. This was the sort of thing you heard about in scary stories for the foals.

        I charged around and under the bridge as a hole in the wall caught my eye. Thinking fast, I ducked into the rectangular dugout. It was a bit of a tight fit, but I made it in. I managed to turn myself around in the cramped passage and stuck my head out to keep watch for Wave. She hadn’t been that far behind me. She had to have seen where I was going. She never missed a thing with those pretty blue eyes of hers.

        I waited there. I waited there for a while - longer than I should have, in hindsight. My heart eventually slowed back to a normal pace, and still I waited for her. What she’d said, and that look she gave me: “Don’t look back.” Much as I wanted to make sure she was okay, I was also pretty sure she could handle herself for a few minutes. Besides, I wasn’t supposed to look back. I put my trust in her and sat down in the passageway, not wanting to venture deeper into the hole in case she passed by.

I waited there for far too long. My active mind got the best of me and I left the comfort of my shelter to sneak a peek outside. Maybe she was further behind than I’d thought? But what if they see you and you get caught! I quickly silenced that negative voice. No time for that, I had to find Wave. She’d never take this long to run that far. I walked out from under the bridge, retracing my steps as best I could.

        The trail ended in a patch of hard ground just in front of the bridge. I could just barely see our hill in the distance. Had we really run that far? I began to panic. No Wave on the horizon, no orange-and-blue specks running toward me, nothing. I hastily trotted to the other side of the bridge. Nothing. Back and forth I wandered, keeping a look out for my best friend. She’d be here soon.

        The light in the sky began to fade as I was making my rounds. The aching in my stomach confirmed the fact that evening was coming, and still I’d seen nothing of Wave. I chanced a look inside the passage before darkness fell; by then, I’d be unable to see at all. With any luck I’d find a telescope, or maybe some food so I could wait a little longer. She’d be here soon.

        Inside the cubbyhole was a surprising amount of… clouds? The small passage ended in a room made entirely of white fluffy cloud, excluding the floor. Clearing away the clouds - which felt jarringly solid - revealed the same concrete walls and ceiling all around, a mere extension of the passageway ending in a somewhat bigger concrete box.

        Also taking up residence in this room was a small metal chest pushed up against the far wall. It yielded some strange artifacts: a metal cuff just big enough to fit my hoof, some T-shaped needles that looked like the painkillers used by the Kingdom’s doctor, and a minor assortment of food canisters. “Tomat-Os,” “Curds ‘n’ Hay,” “Princess Carrotlestia’s Magic Bites?” I’d heard about old food before, but these names sounded like some kind of weird joke. I didn’t get it. At least I had some food now.

        I walked back outside to resume my watch as the light slowly died. Back and forth I went, until I could barely see which way the bridge was. Out of options, I shoved the pile of clouds outside and built a crude statue of myself beside the bridge. It looked nothing like me, other than the big wings, but maybe she’d think it looked close enough to come over and see who had made it. Or maybe some horrible monster will see it as an advertisement for delicious pony meat! I gathered the rest of my cloud and pushed it back inside, having ample left over for a makeshift bed and some covers. She’d be here soon.

        I laid in my bed, safe-ish in the cubbyhole, toying with the cuff and needles. As the darkness became complete, I finally broke down and sobbed uncontrollably for my best friend. I pleaded with the Goddesses. I begged them to bring her to me. I offered my own death for her to be safe. All the pain of the last day collapsed on me at once: the guard, the killing, getting shot at, running away, the monsters in the darkness, the monsters in the clouds, the monsters in the hills, the monsters in my dreams and in my head. They all crashed down on me, and I cried myself to sleep.

        She’d be here soon.

Welcome to Level 1

Perk Gained: Charge!

Your maximum running speed is increased dramatically! Unfortunately, when you get going really fast, you get going really fast! So fast, in fact, that you lose 2 Perception while sprinting faster than normal! Lucky you!