There was a pink, stick like figure protruding from the mound of trash, with it’s end arked steeply to make like a grip. Tea had already sift through thousands of hills that spotted Hoofgreen Park, but had never seen such a thing like this. Colorless and dual, one and the same they all were, but this one. The color was impractical and made this specific pile of trash spontaneous with appeal. It was coated with a light shade of grime, but how the paint failed to deteriorate from the years of acid rain and muck drew her even closer with curiosity. With a single tug, she revealed a slender metal pole with a decayed cone shaped wrapping. Crooked spider like tendons sprouted from it’s peak and stretched to each end of the cone in long bulging strands. The cone was blacken by the muck but it’s handle still pink, and how could that be?
Tea examined it with the little light the clouds allowed. Pink with childish figures of flowers and balloons printed, to add femininity, she imagined the character slugging this contraption about: a little filly whose height only reached the mound of trash she stood on, a beaming smile, and with wearing on her person a variety of interesting colors like clothing and maybe even toys, satchel to her and her book that she carried off to school. There just above the handle was a plastic brace that hugged the pole. Groves were carved in the brace, instinct took control and she took it by the brace. She twisted and pulled, but felt that the braced weaken when taken downwards. In a shocking instance the cone flinched upwards and now balanced in a circular fashion. The spidery tendons pinnacle laid within the pole and sprawled evenly in the now circular shape.The balacken layer of fabric, that the spidery wires were once concealed in, were all torn and uneven with the stretch of wire. She looked upwards and saw nothing but a blacken undergrowth.
The taint had only infected what was buried and left the grip unharmed. And this made her grin. The sprout of joy danced in her head at the sight, and oh how strange. It was nothing like the sight of caps but what a treasure it was, she thought, that little filly. She glanced at her pipbuck and found the discovery overlayed on the screen: Umbrella, it said. She raised a brow and the word and repeated it till the word found it’s place in her vocabulary. She played with the word and found rhymes to it, and rhymes for those said rhymes, and so on.
With her cheeks flustered in a haze of red, she packed her Umbrella, and made off. Following the broken tree line that bendt away from the park but towards her destination, she found the chiseled statue of Celestia. A once fine marble now barely resembled the goddess; it’s marble eaten away and spotted with craters.
She leaned on it’s base and awaited for a particular tank like figure.
“Umbrella, Bobbela, Connella.” she said to herself, giggling at the possibilities. “Natella, Hotella, Momella!”
“Excuse me?” asked a voice accompanied with a sharp ting of metal.
She jumped in fright and then simmered down to a cool embarrassment, “Hey!” she yelled, “Castile, Don’t scare me like that.” Castile stood undisturbed by her complaint and asked, “Are you ready?”
Faint and slightly bothered, she nodded and followed his pacing. “You know,” she said, “it helps if you make complete sentences, instead of these little fractured ones.” he continued further into the wasteland and said nothing. “Hello.” she asked with her head cocked and looking upwards. “I know you’re in there, say something.”
He walked in this soldier like cadence, his hooves striking the sickening pools of acid in a thunder. At times, Tea couldn’t understand if something was actually beneath that suit of armor, it seemed like an android took his place whenever she spoke. But that wouldn’t have been possible. Right? He gushed no emotions, the perfect soldier; he never falters to the sounds of bullets whizzing by that metal head of his, he stands tall, as if he knew invincibility concocted in his spirit and what he bleed was mere the acid he fails to avoid.
“Hey,” she said gently and in hopes his mood would remain as stale as a bag of crackers than an expired ones. “I didn’t find anything… out in the park.” His cadence slowed, “but it’s okay, look at what I found.” Tea pulled the umbrella from her bag, and presented it. “You see, it’s called an Umbrella,” he stopped at the sight of it and said nothing. “It’s not much, but do you think it will get us a few caps?” He took the Umbrella and examined it, she awaited in anticipation for his response. He took it by both ends and with a jolt of energy ripping through his forelegs, he snapped the metal in two.
“We need caps, not games.” he dropped the the Umbrella to her hoofs. She looked up to him with shocked eyes. He said nothing, and began his march. She took the two from the ground with a sour demeanor, and already began plans to have it fix; tape and glue would do just nicely.
Within the city there was a muted atmosphere just accumulating within the walls of it’s buildings and in the clouds just above.
"You know what," Tea said with a raised voice but an earnest one, " I don't think I've been fair to you. You speak every now and a again, but you don't really talk. Why is that?"
