If war never changes, then ponies must change, and so must their symbols. Even if it is nothing at all, know what you follow.

"...which brings me to the latest financial reports," the large gray stallion said as his magic shuffled the folders he was levitating around, "would you prefer to start with exports or shortages?"

I let out an exasperated sigh and laid my head back on the pillow of the bed, slowly massaging my temples with my hooves, "you know, I thought you said appointing a council would make this easier? All it seemed to actually do was create about about a bajillion reports for me to read every day!"

Arginine quirked an eyebrow slightly, "yes, but this way you do not need to write those reports as well."

"Why does anypony need to write these reports?!"

"So that the mare in charge," he responded patiently with a not-so-subtle nod in my direction, "can be made aware of the town's shortage of lumber and authorize a purchase through Three-Way Caravans for five thousand caps worth of salvaged railroad ties from Santa Mara."

"Great. Fine. Do it―wait, did you say 'five thousand'? How much wood do we need anyway? Who needs it?"

"Quite fortuitously, that information is in the report. Would you like me to read it?" The stallion was wearing a very smug―for Arginine―expression.

I glared at the stallion and was about to suggest exactly what I thought he could do with the report when a shooting pain suddenly appeared below my belly, "Ah! Teeth! Watch the teeth!" I reached down and, with tenderness that even I was still surprised that I was capable of, shifted the little gray form lying next to me on the bed ever so slightly.

The newborn colt―had it really only been three months?―bleated in annoyance as he moved and resumed suckling hungrily. At times, I idly wondered if it was possible for him to suck my insides right out of me the way he gorged himself. It also felt like he was growing fast enough that I wasn’t certain that Arginine was completely correct where his assurances about those super-growth genes of his were concerned.

The stallion had been right in one regard: little Ash Cloud was certainly a decidedly unique amalgamation of mine and his genes. Arginine’s coloring beat out anypony from my own family, except for the eyes, which were my mother’s soft green. Pegasi genes won out in the end though, as his little wings and lack of even a single horn attested to, but his legs were long enough to allude to him developing a significantly larger frame than was typical. I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that his wings would be able to keep up with the growth of the rest of him. The Gale Force was going to be kept in good condition, just in case.

He was a tiny-winged, gangly-legged, little gray bloatsprite of a pony. But he was my bloatsprite. He was also constantly hungry, “I swear the only time he’s not attached to my teets is when he’s sleeping,” I muttered, gently extending a wing over the little foal and softly brushing him with my pinions. My hoof traced idly along the scar across my belly that had been left behind by the cesarean that Arginine had performed. The conditions had been far more ideal than they had been for Yatima, which I had been thankful for, but the weeks of bedrest afterwards had still been far from enjoyable. It had taken me that long to get used to the sensation of nursing.

Thankfully, I’d had the zebra mare there to walk me through everything. Not only had she recently been through it all herself, but she’d apparently helped her own mother raise a few younger siblings back in her homeland. Being the youngest myself, I’d never had that sort of experience to fall back on, and I’d lost my family long before my mother could have any sort of discussions about how to go about raising a family of my own. Arginine certainly wasn’t his usual wealth of knowledge on this matter either, as he was learning just as much about caring for foals as I was.

To his credit though, the stallion was an attentive pupil and took as active a role in his son’s life as he could. With the amount of notes he took, I found myself occasionally wondering how much of his involvement was motivated by a desire to study pony development―and his own son’s unique physiological characteristics specifically. Regardless, he was involved, and that was enough for me.

As for ‘us’, well...Arginine was a good father, as far as I was concerned, but I wasn’t convinced he was ‘husband material’. Don’t get me wrong, he was nice enough and everything. He cared about me. However, he wasn’t as...let’s call it ‘emotionally available’ as I needed. It wasn’t his fault. I just...I needed a stallion in my life who genuinely felt happy to be around me the way that I did to be around them. Arginine couldn’t be that for me, no matter how much both of us might want it. He was a good friend, and a good parent, but that was all he’d ever be.

Not that I was actively in the market for a future father to my future foals. One was plenty for the moment, and probably the next few years. At least until I got used to running McMaren.

I felt my face contort into a wry frown at the memory of Homily effectively dumping the management of the rapidly growing settlement into my lap after getting back from Arginine’s Stable. At least she’d had the courtesy to wait until after I’d had the surgery. Though I now suspected that she’d done that in order to make sure that I couldn’t just fly away; because Celestia knows I turned her down enough times to make it clear where I stood on the matter: I was a filly! What did I know about running a town?!

And, no, I didn’t think I was being too hypocritical in deciding whether or not I was a filly or a full-grown mare depending on which category would benefit me the most at the time. I was undeniably at an ambiguous transition age where there were some things that I was mature enough for: like sex―and apparently raising a child―and things that I wasn’t mature enough for: like running a settlement.

However, as time went on, I found that it didn’t really matter what I said officially, ponies kept coming by and asking for my opinion on things and notifying me of what was going on like it was my business to know it before anypony else. As it turned out, being The Wonderbolt and the leader of an army that beat back an invasion of mutant stable ponies earned a mare a lot of respect from the community. Who knew? So, last month I finally went ahead and let it be made official: The Wonderbolt was the new mayor of McMaren, and Homily would be focusing exclusively on broadcasting as Miss Neighvada...when she and Foxglove weren’t keeping half the town awake at night anyway. ‘Surprisingly long tongue’ indeed.

At least I hadn’t been expected to tackle everything all on my own. Arginine had stepped up to serve as my ‘secretary’ of sorts, making sure that I knew what I was supposed to and laying out the better options available when I needed to make a decision. Foxglove had thrown herself bodily into fortifying the town, making good use of the salvage from the stable and what was still being regularly pulled out of the MoA bunker beneath McMaren. Automated defenses lined most of the perimeter by now, making us a decidedly unattractive target for bandits and raiders.

Much to my surprise, Hemlock had decided to relocate out of New Reino. Her official story was that she didn’t care for the city’s political infighting. While I didn’t doubt that that was true―I certainly wasn’t a fan―it wasn’t like such things were a new development there. She could have left at any time. My personal suspicion was that she saw that McMaren’s growth wasn’t stopping any time soon, and wanted to get in on the ground floor of several business opportunities. She’d opened up one ‘bar’ already―that just happened to have a staff comprised of very attractive ponies and a selection of ‘private suites’ available for rent. By the hour. She was also a principal investor in a few other businesses.

I didn’t think that she was up to anything nefarious. She wasn’t that kind of mare. But I did think that there was more to it than she was letting on. In time she might come forward with it, but not now.

Yeoman and the Housecarls all but moved into Seaddle, under contract with Ebony Song to ‘sort the city out’. Part of me knew that the nominal leader of the New Lunar Republic―or whatever they eventually changed their name to next―would become a problem that I’d have to deal with in the future; but for now he had his hooves full dealing with riots and rebellions. Which was fine by me, since I had my hooves full with foal-rearing and learning to manage a town. Not that going back to flying around and punching things into submission didn’t hold an appeal for me from time to time…

Those days weren’t quite behind me, but they were on an extended hiatus.

I had no clue where Keri and the Hecate had gone off to. They weren’t in Neighvada any longer, I knew that much. Their losses at the stable had been pretty bad. Keri might have just disbanded them and gone back to the zebra lands or something. Not that I wish he’d stayed or anything. There really hadn’t been much here for him that I could think of.

Or Starlight for that matter. She turned back up after a few days and hung around for a few weeks after the battle; keeping mostly to herself. She hadn’t said a word to me the whole time. Not that I blamed her. I’d wanted to talk to her, to try and find some other way of explaining why I’d done what I did. More for my sake than hers, really. Sometimes I still found myself questioning my decision, wondering if I’d fucked up and done the wrong thing. Homily and Foxglove had explained it to me a dozen times over: Moonbeam had ‘died’ before those drones even left their hangar. What had come to save us had been a software program, not a pony. Not really.

It had still been Moonbeam’s body that we pulled out of the interface though. Her tiny little foal frame that we’d buried in the ground after removing it from her robotic carriage. It had felt like I’d killed her to me. Probably to Starlight too. At least, at first. She finally spoke to me just before she left.

“You weren’t responsible for what happened.”

That had been it. Then she’d simply walked away and left McMaren. Left the whole valley for all I knew. Probably to try and find that ‘Cynical Empire’ or whatever that she’d mentioned before. I wished her luck. She deserved something good to happen to her. A tall order in the Wasteland, I know, but stranger things have happened.

“I assume that the colt will develop more distinctive personality traits later in life,” Arginine replied, “now, as for the reports―”

My pipbuck bleeped an alert that I was receiving an incoming transmission. I glanced down at the display and saw that it was coming from the town’s front gate. I held up a hoof to stall the stallion, “hold that thought; I need to take this. Windfall, go ahead. What’s up?”

“A group of ponies are at the gate,” a stallion replied. His curt tone set me on edge, “they’re asking to join the town. They’re White Hooves.”

I felt my own features grow grim. Immigrants and refugees weren’t anything new to McMaren. Between the infighting in Seaddle, the loss of so many mercenaries that would otherwise have been keeping bandits suppressed, and even a trickle of new arrivals from out east telling stories about a ‘second war with the zebras’, there had been a steady flow of ponies coming here looking for a new home. Fortunately for them, we weren’t in a position where we could afford to turn away any able-bodied ponies. Foxglove always needed more hooves to help her excavate the underground bunker. More mouths to feed meant a need for more farmers and prospectors to get food. More croplands meant a larger perimeter, which meant more sentries to patrol it.

It was a perpetual cycle of growth that didn’t show any signs of stopping any time soon. So more hooves were always welcome.

Well, in most cases anyway. Constance had done a number of the White Hooves. It was the only good Arginine’s stable had done for the valley, as far as I was concerned. They were effectively destroyed, with only a few scattered groups remaining. Some of those groups seemed intent on rebuilding. Others just wanted to find a safe place to live. However, few Neighvada ponies were willing to let bygones be bygones where that brand was concerned. You couldn’t be part of a group that terrified, slaughtered, and enslaved ponies for centuries and expect that to all blow over just because the terrorizers had their own run of bad luck.

Even I balked at first. The Wonderbolt, Miss Everypony-deserves-a-chance-to-make-it-right, was hard pressed to forgive White Hooves. They’d killed my family. They’d destroyed my life. They’d killed the first stallion I ever loved. I wasn’t going to be able to forgive that any time soon. Maybe not ever.

But just because I couldn’t forgive them, didn’t mean that I couldn’t still give them a chance. Jackboot had made the most out of his. Maybe other White Hooves could too.

“I’ll be right there,” I finally replied. Arginine was already in action too, wrapping Ash Cloud in his amber telekinetic field and lifting the small colt away from where he was taking his breakfast. The inevitable protests were silenced quickly by the administration of a bottle that had already been prepared for just such an occasion, “sorry, Ash. Your ma has to take care of something real quick. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I hesitated at the door just long enough to confirm that Arginine had matters well in hoof. My son’s small size made the older stallion appear almost comically large.

“We―and the reports,” he added in slightly more stern tone as he flashed a knowing look, “will be waiting.”

I rolled my eyes, “right, yeah, I know. This’ll just take, like, fifteen minutes,” and with a final little wave at Ash―who was too busy suckling the bottle to care about anything else around him, much less his own mother―took my leave and headed outside.

Much to my surprise, Foxglove was on her way to meet me. My eyes briefly darted to her mechanical prosthetic hind leg. A product of the unicorn’s own design, it wasn’t a true cybernetic limb, despite how most ponies described it. It did however use a series of accelerometers and pistons to mimic the movements of a real leg and allow her to walk with hardly any noticeable limp. She could even run with it, though she did need to ‘work her way up’ to a full gallop so that the leg could accommodate. It let her get around though, and that was all that mattered.

“They called you too?” I asked of the violet mare, noting that she was carrying her eldritch lance.

“No,” she held up the pipbuck that she’d acquired from Arginine’s stable, “proximity talismans alerted me, and then I checked the videos feeds from the towers.”

I briefly looked in the direction of the nearest lookout tower, which was not occupied by ponies, but by a cluster of video cameras. Those feeds were sent to anypony with access to the tower network, which consisted of anypony on the guard force, Foxglove, Homily, and even myself. I, however, did not have anything set up on my own pipbuck to alert me to approaching visitors. Mostly because ponies came in and out of this place at all hours and Ash Cloud still wasn’t sleeping through the night, so I tended to grab any sleep I could get when a chance presented itself. The last thing that I wanted was to be woken up randomly throughout the day or night when I was getting what little sleep I could.

“Well, let’s go see who it is,” I said, leading the way towards McMaren’s main gate. As we walked, I took the opportunity to note once more how lively this place was becoming. The ‘market’ that had only a few months ago been a collection of tents and stalls now resembled a proper bazaar not so different from Seaddle’s. Houses too. The base’s existing barracks buildings were not large enough to house all the ponies who lived here any longer, and so more housing was being built all the time. I noticed a few examples of homes being constructed, and saw the slats of wood that were being hammered together.

Ah, so that was what we needed the lumber for!

Finally we reached the front gate. Immediately I felt the tension in the air as I saw the dozen guardsponies standing with their weapons at the ready around the pair of new arrivals. No, that wasn’t quite right, I realized. The mare, a soot-gray unicorn, had a foal swaddled across her back. Her companion, a yellow earth pony stallion, was standing protectively near the pair, a crude spear defiantly clutched in the crook of his hoof. Such a weapon wouldn’t do him much good against the rifles arrayed against him if trouble started, but I could appreciate the gesture for what it represented: he was there to look after the mare and her foal.

Both ponies looked haggard and the harsh miles that they’d trekked across the valley was evident on their hides. I could tell from their packs that they didn’t have many supplies left. Certainly not enough to get them anywhere else if I turned them away. They’d traveled here on an ‘all or nothing’ gambit, trusting that they wouldn’t be cast back out into the Wasteland. That was a pretty bold assumption for a pair of White Hooves to make. Or a desperate one.

They certainly were White Hooves though, of that there was no doubt. The mare’s brand was mostly covered by her swaddled foal, but the stallion’s was plain to see. My eye darted to a discarded cloak on the ground near him that would have covered the brand...likely until the guards made him remove it specifically to check. The earth pony looked like he was ready to be told to leave.

The mare...she was different. She was better at concealing her emotions, and actually carried herself in an almost proud manner. She had to be just as aware of how dire her situation was as everypony else, but it was clear that she wouldn’t lower herself to begging all the same. She’d present her case, and await the verdict, and be done with it one way or the other. In a way, I could respect that. Though I wasn’t sure how much I liked the idea of a proud White Hoof wandering the town.

One of the guards noticed my and Foxglove’s approach and signaled the others. All eyes went to me, guard and White Hoof alike, and it was now my turn to act like I wasn’t concerned.

There was the smallest hint of widened eyes from the unicorn mare, but she quickly suppressed the reaction. That was hardly anything new. While most ponies in Neighvada knew that The Wonderbolt ran McMaren, most ponies assumed a lot of things about me based upon Homily’s broadcasts. It was like everypony was disappointed that I wasn’t ten feet tall and could spit thunderbolts.

“Welcome to McMaren. I’m Windfall. I’m the mare in charge here. I’m told you want to join our little community. Who are you and why should I let you?”

The earth pony stallion remained silent, deferring to the unicorn mare. Nonplussed by my little introduction, she leveled her red eyes down at me. I felt something tingle in the back of my head, but I couldn’t quite place it. A tiny pink earth pony merely rubbed her chin, glared at her tail, and shrugged unhelpfully.

“I’m Sica. This is Bo,” she paused for a moment and then glanced back at the slumbering foal on her back, “and that’s Hessia,” she looked back at me with that determined expression of hers, “we seek refuge.”

“A lot of ponies do,” I noted noncommittally, “but we don’t let just anypony move in. Especially if they have...questionable histories,” I said, glancing briefly to the stallion’s back.

The unicorn’s expression didn’t change, “we heard that The Wonderbolt welcomed White Hooves.”

“I’ve welcomed some,” I corrected lightly, “I’ve turned away others. Why should I welcome you?”

“If you don’t, we’ll die.”

“You should have thought of that before you packed for a one-way trip,” I pointed out, “that’s your problem, not mine.”

Again the mare’s eyes widened in surprise for a brief moment before she composed herself. To me, that confirmed that she’d been hoping to play with the heartstrings of the ‘soft and forgiving’ Wonderbolt that she’d heard ran this town. There was a better than even chance that these two had stashed some additional supplies out in the desert that would see them safely somewhere else if I turned them away. Unfortunately for them, it turned out that I could be taught, and I’d learned to be a bit more cynical. In point of fact, my criteria for joining the town weren’t all that demanding: if I felt like I could trust you to be within a hundred yards of my infant son, then you were in.

I didn’t feel that way about evasive unicorns who acted like they had me all figured out. Unfortunately for these two.

“You’d let my daughter die?” the mare asked.

“If you really walked all this way with barely enough food and water for the trip, then you’re the one who killed her, not me,” I replied tersely, “if you’re really that concerned for her, then how about a deal: you two leave; your daughter stays. I know plenty of ponies who would make great parents for her. Heck, if you’re really super concerned, I can even see to it that they’re White Hooves. Let them teach her about her ‘proud heritage’ of rape and murder, or whatever,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hoof.

That was...mostly true. I mean, the White Hoof foster parents thing was one hundred percent the truth. I’d allowed some White Hooves to stay who had foals. I was confident at least one of those families would be willing to welcome another ‘member of the tribe’. However, I had made it clear that some aspects of their tribe’s heritage were to remain in the past. Specifically the slavery, murder, and rape. No branding or pit-fighting either. They weren’t White Hooves anymore. They were McMarens.

The yellow earth pony glared at me balefully, his lips pulling back in a sneer. He spoke up this time though, “how dare you suggest something like that! That foal is the―”

Whatever else he’d been about to say was cut off two-fold by a frantic smack from the mare and a curt interruption from me, “―the only one of you I am confident doesn’t have a history of violence as wide as my wingspan!” I snapped at the stallion, making a mental note of the mare’s own surprising reaction but not remarking on it. Both of the older White Hooves were silent again, the stallion looking rather cowed, “neither I, nor the other ponies of McMaren, have the time to foalsit you two and and make sure you intend to be good, productive, helpful, little ponies.

“So now’s a good time for the pair of you to cut the crap and start giving me straight answers to my questions. Otherwise you can just turn your happy flanks around and go someplace else. Because between running this town and dealing with my own newborn foal, I am working off a grand total of…” I did some quick mental math with the help of a purple unicorn who had bags under her eyes about the size of mine, “...four hours of uninterrupted sleep...since last Thursday. So trust me when I tell you that I genuinely don’t care what you choose and I don’t have the time to sit here and argue with you.

“Either answer my question. Pass me your foal. Or leave. Choose.

“Now.”

Silence hung in the air between us. I counted to ten in my head, hopeful that I’d get a response from the otherwise impassive unicorn mare. When I finished counting, I let out a sigh and turned around, “escort them out of sight of the perimeter. If they resist, knock them unconscious and then drag them there. Celestia willing, they’ll wake up before a radscorpion finds them.” I started heading back to my quarters. This wouldn’t be the first group of prospective refugees that had let their pride get the better of them.

“Wait!” the mare cried as the guards closed in around the trio.

I paused and held up a wing. The guards backed off. I looked over my shoulder. The gray unicorn mare appeared to have given up on her posturing. Her shoulders were slumped now, her weariness plain to see. She was hanging her head, “...we don’t have anywhere else to go. Every other settlement shoots White Hooves on sight. None of our own tribe will take us―” a pause and a resigned correction, “take me in...or my daughter.

“We don’t have the supplies to leave the valley,” she admitted in that same resigned tone, and I believed her, “and I don’t have many skills that your settlement would find useful. Bo, at least, is a passable forager,” surprisingly, the stallion actually seemed touched by that...praise?

“If...if that’s not acceptable...then…” the mare’s horn began to glow with a soft red light as a matching aura enveloped the foal on her back. The little filly squirmed and protested being moved. I watched as the infant was presented to me, “...then at least take her,” the mare looked up to me now, finally, “please.”

I regarded the little unicorn filly hovering in front of me. A rusty-red coat, crimson eyes, and a dirty-blond mane. None too pleased to be out of her swaddle either. Skinny too. All three of them looked just a tad on the underfed side, in fact. I reevaluated my previous assumption and decided that it was actually pretty likely that they had bet their lives on being granted sanctuary in McMaren. A risk, to be sure; especially for a pair of White Hooves.

“Come on then,” I looked away and motioned with my wing for them to follow me, “let’s go find you guys some water and a meal while I track down a spare room you can have,” the town was pretty full up most of the time, despite building new homes as quickly as possible. I idly wondered how quickly we could get those railroad ties from Santa Mara delivered…

I noticed that I didn’t hear any hoofsteps behind me and stopped to look back around again. The White Hoof mare and stallion were simply standing there, looking at me with shocked expressions. Foxglove was looking a little surprised as well. The guards looked...not exactly thrilled, but none of them had ever questioned a decision that The Wonderbolt had made before, and they weren’t quite ready to start doing it now. Saving your town a few times earned you a lot of leeway, it turned out.

“Aren’t you coming? I thought you wanted in?”

The unicorn mare finally found her voice, “you’re letting us stay? All of us?”

“...Yes?”

“Why?”

I rolled my eye and smirked at the pair, “because you did the right thing: you put other ponies before yourself. You admitted you needed help, and then you asked for it. I think you have what it takes to make lives for yourselves in McMaren, so I’m going to let you stay,” I shrugged, “maybe you’re really good at lying and you’ve just been feeding me a whole bowl of horseapples, but I don’t think so.

“So I’m giving you a chance to prove me wrong,” I said, my expression becoming slightly more serious, “but I’m really hopeful that you’ll prove me right.”

I thought for a minute and focused on the yellow stallion, “there’s a group heading out to prospect in Old Reino in a couple of days. There’s a spot open if you want to go. Pay’s five hundred caps plus one percent of the value of the haul. Interested?”

“I…” the stallion balked, looking between me and his fellow White Hoof for a moment, “...will think about it.”

“Please do,” I said before looking to one of the guards, “Dungaree, get them a meal, show them around. I’ll have Arginine track you down when we figure out where they can stay,” I turned my attention back to the little filly who was still floating in front of me, stroking her cheek with a pinion, “amd let Yatima know there’s another foal in town.

“She organizes something of a daycare-slash-playdate...thing...for the town’s foals and their parents,” I informed the unicorn, “it’s pretty fun actually. Tomorrow we’re making teething rings!” Well, Arginine would be at any rate. According to him, I was going to be in meetings with the ponies that I’d put in charge of managing our food, guardspoines, and whatever the fuck ‘urban planning’ was. Apparently we couldn’t just build whatever buildings we wanted anywhere that was convenient at the time. Whatever…

Now that everything was finally sorted at the gate, I headed back towards my own home-slash-office where Arginine was no doubt waiting to dive right back into all of those reports of his.

Maybe there was room for me to go on that trip to Old Reino? I certainly didn’t need the money, but I could use a vacation…

I noticed that Foxglove was constantly looking back towards the gate, and the White Hooves, with a pensive expression, “something wrong?” It was nothing out of the ordinary for the unicorn to be suspicious of new arrivals. Especially when those new arrivals were clearly White Hooves or nominally former members of some gang or other.

“I don’t know,” the violet unicorn mumbled, “I recognize those two…”

“You do?” I said with a note of surprise, looking back at the gate myself now, “are they going to be trouble?”

Foxglove thought for a long moment, “...I don’t think so,” she shook her head and then looked at me as she fell into step at my side, “so, using her child to prove she’s a good pony, eh? I don’t know if I’m supposed to be impressed by how you manipulated her, or concerned.”

“I just proved she could become a good pony. If she really wants to,” I corrected, “and I didn’t ‘manipulate’ her. I just spoke to her, mother-to-mother,” I winked up at the mare, “you’ll learn how it is, one of these days.”

“Ha! Not likely,” Foxglove snorted in amusement, “No, no, no. Me and foals? Not going to happen.”

“Awe, but you’re already such a great ma!”

“Stop it,” the unicorn snapped in faux annoyance, “I’m not their mother.”

Now it was my turn to snort, “they live with you and Homily, Diamond Plate helps you on just about all of you jobs, and―to hear Homily talk―Merrybell is going to make a perfect co-host for Miss Neighvada someday. They’re even brainstorming on-air names for her. Personally, I like: Lil’ Valley,” I beamed up at the unicorn mare, “they’re either your de facto adopted children or your roommates-slash-coworkers. Which makes you feel less weird?”

“Eh…” the violet mechanic shrugged, “Diamond’s a good assistant, and a quick learner,” she admitted, “he doesn’t need parents. He just needs a teacher. I can be that for him without mothering him,” she pointed out, “the only reason he sticks around is because of Merrybell,” her expression grew significantly more somber now, “and she...well, the only stallion she doesn’t have a panic attack around is her brother.”

I grunted in acknowledgement. The pair had arrived just a few days before we returned from Arginine’s stable. They’d been half dead from the trip. It was a month before they were fully recovered. Finding out that there had in fact been survivors of that stable Jackboot and I had come across all those months ago was a little uplifting, but that had been firmly countered by learning what the pair had endured during their trip. Particularly the filly. She might not speak about it yet, but her brother was willing enough to. An encounter with a raider stallion in the Old Reino ruins. The filly was still more than a little anxious around strange stallions as a result. Staying with Homily and Foxglove was good for her.

“I still think you four make an adorable family,” I smiled at the mare.

“Keep talking like that and I’m going to have Homily put the word out over the radio that The Wonderbolt is ‘looking for love’,” Foxglove warned in a tone that suggested even she wasn’t sure if she was joking or making a valid threat, “just imagine it: stallions and mares lined up from here to New Reino―”

“Alright! Alright! Shutting up now!” I said, throwing up my wings in surrender to the sound of the unicorns laughter, “speaking of, I have my own family to get back to,” I added with a resigned sigh. To say nothing of the stack of reports waiting for me as well.

“Say ‘hi’ to RG and Ash for me!”

With that, the two of us parted ways. Foxglove to get back to whatever project she had been working on before the alert had taken her away, while I headed off to resume my newfound mayoral duties.

Honestly, as much as I griped, it wasn’t all that bad. I had plenty of ponies willing to help me make the right decisions, and most of the complaints that I got were about minor things. Some of my ‘eccentricities’ had taken some getting used to by the public. Things like letting in White Hooves and the like. While there wasn’t much crime in the town, what there was wasn’t punished all that harshly. That had been a hard sell. Especially when I put out that as long as it wasn’t something as serious as rape or murder, the pony in question wouldn’t be confined to a cell so much as their own quarters. Where they would then be subjected to regular counseling from Homily, Yatima, or myself.

The grumbling from the more experienced guardponies who ‘knew how criminals needed to be treated’ subsided―a little―when it became clear that there wasn’t actually a lot of repeat offenses. There was still plenty of skepticism, but that I could tolerate. I idly wondered how much more ‘skeptical’ the ponies around me would be if they knew how many of my actions were being guided by a committee of six little ponies in my head?

Still, things seemed to be working out. For now. I was happy. The ponies of McMaren were happy. The sky was blue―we were still trying to figure out why that was suddenly a thing now. Somehow the Wasteland...didn’t feel quite as much like the Wasteland anymore.

It wasn’t going to go away completely anytime soon, of course. Probably not even in my lifetime. That was fine though. Equestria wasn’t going to be rebuilt in a day, and it didn’t have to be. As long as ponies made the world just a tiny bit better every day, then that...that was enough.

That was how you got there: a little at a time…

“Mom told us to stay away from this place,” the young stallion cautioned nervously, looking around at their surroundings as though something might jump out at them at a moment’s notice.

His mare companion, who was just about the same age as he was, snorted derisively, “and we both know that you always do what mommy says. Please. You came this far. Trust me, this’ll be cool!”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Um, duh? Anyplace that your parents tell you not to go is―by definition―totally cool.”

“She told us to stay away from that one stable too,” the stallion pointed out as he used his wings to steady his steps when a piece of debris that he’d stepped on became dislodged and started tumbling down further into the dark pit before them, clattering out of sight at the bottom. He grunted and simply hopped into the air, intent on hovering the rest of their way, “remember? The one that turned out to be full of ghouls that tried to eat us?”

“And?” the mare countered with a mirthful grin at her companion, “I submit to you that that place was totally cool!”

“It was ‘totally’ a deathtrap. This place probably is too.”

“What? You have something against deathtraps now? Are you deathtrap-ist? That’s awful discriminatory. I thought your mother taught you better than that!” The pegasus glared, which only prompted a laugh from the mare, “come on, we’re almost at the bottom!”

“For the record: if we end up being eaten by ghouls, I’m telling your mom it was your fault.”

“If you do that, you’re not getting any tonight,” she quipped, still smiling.

“I am capable of going without sex for a day, I’ll have you know.”

“Uh, huh,” the unicorn acknowledged dismissively, “and yet, you never turn it down…”

“I said that I am capable. I did not say that I desired to.”

“You’re talking like your father. Don’t talk like your father.”

“Right…”

The pair finally reached the bottom of the massive, artificial, cavern. It was immediately apparent that whatever had happened here had been...violent. Not that the massive crater in the middle of the junkyard hadn’t been proof enough of that. Still, the twisted machinery and scorched slag that littered the floor told quite the tale as well.

“It looks like somepony set off a balefire bomb in here,” the stallion noted.

“This place might have been a zebra target during the war,” the unicorn mare pointed out.

“Blast pattern isn’t right,” the pegasus said, shaking his head, “the ceiling was blown out, not in. Whatever hit this place did it from the inside.”

“Zebra agents could have snuck a bomb in.”

“Maybe…” the stallion considered the possibility thoughtfully, “that means there’s probably radiation here though. We should leave.”

“We’ll be fine for a little while,” the mare insisted, “I want to look around!” She bounded off deeper into the darkness, her glowing horn creating a sphere of soft red light for illumination.

“Hessia!” the stallion called out, flitting after her. He may have been used to her impulsiveness, but that didn’t mean that he found it any less aggravating at times, “I’m serious!”

“Relax, AC! We’ll be quick. In and out. Fifteen minutes. Promise!”

The pegasus let out an exasperated groan but followed in her wake regardless. He knew from past experience that the unicorn’s typical promise of ‘fifteen minutes’ had a habit of running...overlong, “I swear to Celestia, that mare…”

It was about this moment that Ash Cloud realized that he’d managed to actually lose track of the mare. His brow furrowed and he slowed his progress, now firmly engulfed in the dark interior of...whatever this place was. As dark as it was, the light from her glowing horn should have been quite easy to track, “Hessia?” No response, “Hess...?” Still only silence.

He was starting to get worried now. He stopped hovering, no longer confident about his surroundings. It was nearly impossible for him to see where the walls were. He continued on though, slowly. The stallion certainly wasn’t going to leave this place without her. If he did, either his mother would kill him or hers would. Even then, those were merely secondary reasons for not leaving her behind.

No force in the Wasteland was going to drive him away from the mare he―

“C’mere!”

Ash didn’t have even a second to react before a pair of hooves lashed out at him from the darkness and coiled around his neck. The unicorn was drug, bodily, through a nearby door. He would have yelped out in surprise had something not immediately covered his mouth and prevented him from saying anything. That ‘something’ covering his mouth turned out to be Hessia’s mouth as she took the startled pegasus into her embrace.

All of the tension immediately flowed right out of the stallion as he rolled his eyes and began to reciprocate the kiss, his wings wrapping themselves around the unicorn mare. When they broke apart to finally catch their breath, he sighed, “I will never understand your penchant for making love in these sorts of places.”

“One: you’re talking like your father again. Two: don’t ever call what I do to you ‘making love’. And three―” she pulled him back into another passionate kiss, gripping his lower lip in her teeth this time as she pulled away, “shut up and fuck me!”

“As you wish, Miss Hessia,” the mare’s expression went cross, but the stallion cut off whatever protest she was about to make with a kiss of his own as he gathered the mare up in his hooves and wings and lifted her back against a nearby wall. She might not have appreciated the elocutal habits that he’d picked up from his sire, but Hessia approved of his inherited size and strength quite thoroughly.

The unicorn mare grunted as her back was slammed up against the wall, but her own hooves tightened around her stallion to show that she quite approved of the maneuver. She buried her head in his neck, biting down on her lower lip as she felt him go to work. He might not understand her kink, but at least he never balked at obliging her. Truth to tell, she wasn’t completely aware of the nature of its origin either. There was just something about these old, forgotten, places that got to her in a way she couldn’t explain. Dark. Dangerous. Secluded. Mysterious…

...Making muffled noises in her ear that sounded absolutely nothing like Ash Cloud.

“Hold on, what’s that sound?”

“Huh? Wai―what?” the pegasus said, panting, looking around in confusion, “what sound?”

“Let me down,” the unicorn insisted. With a reluctant grunt, her lover complied and lowered the mare back down to her hooves so that she could turn around and search for the source of the distraction. Her horn glowed now, illuminating the surface that she had been recently pressed against.

It turned out that she had not been shoved up against a true ‘wall’, as she had believed. Indeed, there weren’t any genuine walls in the room that they were in at all. Well, there were surely one or two, but they were likely on the far side of the towering pieces of electronics that lined the room. At least one of which appeared to still be drawing power from somewhere. Enough, at least, for Hessia to have inadvertently activated some sort of speaker.

She reached out and gently spun a nearby dial that was marked as controlling the volume. She furrowed her brow, glancing over at Ash Cloud, “that’s clearly somepony speaking, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Can you?”

The stallion rolled his eyes, “you didn’t pay any attention to Nana Yatima’s lessons, did you? They’re speaking in zebra,” he tilted his head towards the speaker and closed his eyes, “...something about an engine test...a malfunction...problem fixed...then a part that literally translates to: ‘many world go-arounds’. Whatever that could possibly mean...returning...a date...asking for a response…” the stallion pulled back from the speaker, “and then everything repeats again.”

“An automated message from zebras?” the unicorn mused, “hard to believe that there’s still stuff like that that’s been transmitting for over two hundred years…” she noticed that the stallion wasn’t paying attention though. He had a pencil and a notebook out, scribbling hastily in it. Hessia rolled her eyes, “oh, you are not writing a report about this for your father, are you?”

“Nope. Doing math,” the pegasus mumbled around the pencil in his mouth, “the date was for the zebra calendar. But it’s...wrong somehow. I don’t know. I’m converting it to a pony date.”

“‘Wrong’? What, you think that zebras don’t know how to use their own calendar?”

The stallion ignored her and finished his scribbling. He spit the pencil back into his saddlebag and started at the notebook, his eyes wide. The mare craned her head around to look at what had him so surprised, but her eyes glazed over the moment they were confronted with so many numbers and equations, “okay, so...what is it? What was so ‘wrong’?”

“...It’s in the future,” Ash said.

“What do you mean: ‘it’s in the future’?”

“I mean, the date hasn’t happened yet,” he gestured at the speaker, which was still replaying the message, “that message is talking about something that’s going to happen. In―” he briefly glanced back at his notebook, “six weeks.”

“A two century old message is talking about something that’s going to happen next month?” the mare asked skeptically, “are you sure you didn’t forget to carry a one somewhere?” the stallion flashed her an annoyed look and the mare sighed, “right...right,” as though Ash Cloud was going to screw up a simple date conversion. This was the same stallion who’d done all of the pressure calculations for Diamond Plate’s steam engine when he was eight. His father had checked his work before anypony actually used those calculations, but they’d been correct regardless.

If Ash Cloud said that the date used in the transmission was in six weeks, it was in six weeks. Though, that still left the little matter of, “so what does any of it mean? Some zebras coming back in six weeks? Coming back from where? And why is this place picking up the signal?”

“I have absolutely no clue,” the stallion admitted, finally putting away his notebook too, “but if it’s an active transmission, Merrybell might be able to tell us more using the valley’s relay towers. She can probably triangulate its exact location.”

“Ooh ooh! Do you think it’s from space?”

“It’s not from space,” the stallion replied flatly, “there’s no way to get to space.”

“I thought that one pony went to the moon?”

“You mean the pony that died three times and blew up a city?” the stallion said with a bored expression, “that pony?”

“I think she only died twice…”

“Oh, my apologies. Did she go to space before or after the first time she died?”

Hessia snorted and playfully shoved the pegasus, “why are you talking about her like she wasn’t a real pony? You know she was a real pony. We’ve met, like, a hundred ponies from Hoofington who all told us about her!”

“I believe she was a real pony,” Ash said defensively, “I just think that some of her accomplishments were...exaggerated. You know, to build up the legend. Like how they say my mom killed Princess Luna. When what she actually did was kill a robot pretending to be Princess Luna,” he thought for a moment, “and even then I’m not sure she was the one who actually killed it…”

“Whatever,” the unicorn waved her hoof dismissively, “I totally believe that Blackjill or whoever totally went to the moon, and that there’s totally a bunch of zebras in space sending out that message,” the mare was practically bouncing on the tips of her hooves with excitement, “I mean, can you imagine what it must be like in space?” Hessia stopped bouncing, her eyes growing suddenly wide before looking at the stallion hungrily, “what it must be like to fuck in space?

“Up there...surrounded by an endless black void...hundreds of miles from anypony else...a paper-thin wall of metal all that separates you from an agonizing death where suffocation and being flash-frozen are racing to see which one kills you first…”

The stallion blinked, “Okay Hess, we have got to have a serious talk about your fascination with―!”

The mare tackled him to the ground. Ash Cloud very quickly ceased to particularly care what sorts of thoughts made his marefriend feel amorous.

Footnote: The End...?

Author's Note

Oh, Sweet Celestia, it's over! I'm free! FREE!!!

Unbelievable. A million words and six FAUSTING years later, and I finally managed to wrangle this beast around to a conclusion...

Would any of you believe that, when I started this thing, I thought that it might hit a hundred thousand words? If I added useless filler? Because that's what a younger, much more naïve, Copper Top sure thought!

Honestly, it's a little bittersweet. On the one hoof, I'm glad to be able to finally devote myself to some of the other projects I have waiting in the wings (like the four other stories I haven't posted any of here yet because they're only half flesh out story-wise). One of which is a sort of follow-up/sequel piece to this one (not Hessia and AC tracking down space zebras, sorry ...Well, not yet anyway. They'll have to wait their turn in line regardless. 2024 EDIT: I have started on this! It will happen EventuallyTM) On the other hoof...I'm going to miss these guys. I've been with these characters longer than any others I've ever written.

Even though this does mark the end of Legacies, as well as Windfall's story, I'm not going to switch the marker to "Complete" just yet. I'll be giving this whole monster one last pass to try and find at least a tiny fraction of the billion spelling/grammar/tense errors that I SWEAR just APPEAR OUT OF NOWHERE! None of these mistakes were there the first six times I read through this thing, I promise you!

Anyway, in the meantime, I want to take a moment to extend my heartfelt thanks to all those who made it this far. And even to those who will never see this message because they bailed after the first chapter or two; thanks for at least giving it a try! I don't think I ever honestly thought this thing would get the kind of attention that it did. So thanks for that.

Hopefully any of you that did make it this far will stick around long enough to check out the other stuff I eventually post here. Some of it will be Fallout Equestria related, some of it won't. I hope that any of it is at least tolerable.

Thank you so much for reading! As always, a thumbs up and comment are always greatly appreciated

I've set up a Cover Art Fund if you're interested and have any bits lying around! You can see what I'M capable of, heh; professional assistance is clearly needed here!