Fallout Equestria - The Big Easy

“A historical monument if there ever was one, this gorgeous example of Zebra Colonial architecture is dedicated to the Goddesses of Equestria.”

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to Equestria on the Temple of the Celestial Sisters
  ~~~~

The world was black.

My mind was foggy and my entire body felt heavy. It felt as if somepony had put a heavy, wet blanket over me. I tried to lift a hoof. Nothing happened. In the end I just ended up groaning at that little effort.

“Careful, son. Y'all gonna hurt yaself, ya keep that up. Jus' rest.”

“Son?” I felt my heart jump for just a moment. If I had died and I had to meet my father again... then I remembered my father never had much of an accent. I forced one of my eyes open to see just where I was.

It turned out to be a rather spartan room. Soft grey light filtered in from the uncovered windows while rain pattered against the glass. Very little decorated the off-white walls, except for a brass sun-and-moon disc hanging on the wall above me. I tried to turn my head to see who had been speaking, which took a lot more effort than I'd expected.

An orange zony with red stripes sat in a chair next to me wearing the strangest clothes I'd ever seen. Black, almost robe-like barding with a small white square on the collar. It was as long as a dress but was clearly cut for a stallion. He just grinned at me when he saw me try to move.“Y'all don't take well t'instructions, don't ya?” he asked in a joking tone.

“Who're'ya?” I mumbled. My speech was slurred and my jaw didn't quite move right. I raised a hoof and pressed it to my cheek. Something fuzzy was pressed tightly to it. I poked at it idly in confusion.

“Mah name's Sunray,” the zony replied. “Father Sunray. Y'all got somewhat lucky.” His name was apt enough. That colour combination of his coat and stripes made him look warm, like a ray of a sun.

“Wha' happen'?” I was still groggy but at least I was somewhat lucid now. I still had no idea where I was though.

“Y'all got shot.” Sunray seemed rather nonchalant about it. “We been havin' problems with raidahs recently. Pokin' around where dey shouldn't. One of my newest guards took de shot. She thought y'all mighta been lookin' t'cause trouble.”

“Y'all ma'e i' a habi' shoo'in' e'erypony?” The slur was definitely not helping anything on my end.

Sunray shook his head. “Ah tried tellin' her Ah was goin' t'say hi, but she didn' listen. Or didn' hear. Anyway, y'all survived, and that's what mattahs most.”

“Ah can' feel muh jaw,” I complained. It felt like such a petty complaint after getting shot. “An' how's ge'in shot goo'?” I added. Accident or not this mare had shot me! That wasn't exactly something that sat all that well with me.

The zony facing me sighed softly. “She realized her mistake jus' as she shot. Wasn't no intentional thin'. Don' feel like she done it on purpose. As for yer jaw, y'all should start gettin' feelin' back soon enough.”

I grunted in annoyance. Intentional or not, I'd been shot. I'd have to have a talk with this mare about that. The zony leaned forward and for the first time I noticed he had a unicorn horn sticking out of his red mane. That was the strange thing about zony genetics. You would get more than just strange coat colours. Sometimes a zony would inherit traits from their parents. I'd gotten nothing from my father, which was a bit of a pity. Wings would have been fun to have.

Sunray's horn lit up and I felt a gentle tearing on my cheek. I saw him pull a cotton pad and some tape away from my jaw. Then he leaned in a little closer and nodded to himself in what seemed to be approval. “Healin' nicely. Y'all might have a bit of a scar, but ain't gunna have any lastin' damage.”

No lasting damage. That was good to hear. A scar was slightly less so but I could manage. Some stallions even found scars attractive. And, like Sunray had said, I was starting to feel my jaw again. The grogginess was clearing up too.

Now that I was feeling a little better I decided to try and look around the room again. I tried to sit up, but Sunray just gently pushed me back onto the bed, so I settled with just looking around. The room was almost completely bare. A chair, a desk with a few books on a shelf, and that was it. “Where am Ah?” I asked at long last.

“Mah room in de Temple o' de Celestial Sistahs.” Sunray sat back in his chair a little bit. “Ah'll show ya 'round in a little bit, if y'ad like. Be best if y'actually listen t'me an' rest up first, dough. No excuses!” The stallion got up and left me alone in the room.

I sat in silence for a moment before completely ignoring the order to sit. I was starting to feel better anyway. The big thing was: I'd made it. I'd made it to the Temple. I wanted to see what it was for myself, starting with this room.

The moment I got off the bed my vision swam. It was like being on a boat in bad weather. My stomach lurched and while my vision tilted one way I was falling in the other. I tried to stand still and managed to avoid falling over. Good. I gave him head a gentle shake then trotted for the window. A grey wall and cobblestones greeted me. It took me a moment to realize it was the same alleyway I'd walked through not long ago. Wait. I'd been out a while but Sunray hadn't said how long. I also had no way of checking. Having a gap in one's memory did suck but I couldn't have been out that long. In any case I had nowhere important to be – I'd already made it to the Temple after all – so I decided to keep going.

I trotted over to the desk to check out the books that I'd seen. Most of them seemed to be about Pre-War societies. Clocks and Capitalism: The Griffon Lands Explained and All for One, One for All: Equestria's Benevolent Monarchy. I snorted in amusement. That didn't sound like propaganda at all. A few more books about Pre-War life before one practically jumped out at me. I recognized it immediately even before I read the title.

I tugged the book out of the pile and set it on the desk. Immediately a wave of nostalgia washed over me.

The cover showed a castle on a mountaintop, and high above it hung a moon with a stylized mare's head on it. I could hear my Dad's voice in my head as I read the title.

The Mare in the Moon and Other Short Stories.

I idly flipped through the pages. I had learned to read with this very book. For a moment I was back in our cabin on the plantation, sitting comfortably between a perpetually skinny zebra mare with the brightest smile ever and a perpetually tired-looking pegasus stallion who never seemed to lack energy to be with his family. My father was holding the book, my parents taking turns voicing different characters. I could still hear them both clear as day. My mother had been a Martingaler, born and raised, and her accent reflected it. My father had been from somewhere north of the Muddy River Delta, though he had never said exactly where and I had never asked. In hindsight, I should have asked. It was too late for that now though.

I closed the book and the memory was gone. I brushed a hoof across my eyes. They were pleasant memories but they were still sad. I put the book carefully back where it belonged. I couldn't dwell on the past like that. Living entirely in the past was dangerous. Sometimes you had to just move on. Yeah, I loved my parents, but they were long gone now. Crying over their memories wouldn't change that.

Just had to move on.

I left the room to check out the rest of the Temple. Like the room the hallway was plain and bare. No decorations to be found at all. It was strange given how beautiful the outside was. Then again the outside of the Temple was plain too. Somepony must have just liked plainness when they built the place. I heard a loud drone down the hall to my right and humming to the left. Accompanying the humming was the smell of something spicy. It was a scent familiar to anypony from Martingale. Somepony was making gumbo, or at least the post-apocalyptic version of it.

I turned to the left and followed the smell of food. I was a simple stallion after all. Food first. Mysterious droning later.

The smell was coming from a surprisingly clean kitchen, where Father Sunray was hard at work over a large metal pot. I watched as he chopped what looked like bell peppers, but given Martingale's rather poor growing conditions, they looked shrivelled and wilted despite being fully edible. More memories flooded in with the smell of food. Every now and again a whole cabin would pitch in their daily rations to make gumbo for their cabin. Sometimes other cabins would join in to get a bit of a feast going. It also wasn't uncommon for Apple Core to bring me something extra from his house on occasion, usually some better quality vegetables his parents managed to get from the traders. Those occasions were few and far between but they were always a treat.

A big meal among friends, a night with a cute stallion, and a bed to sleep in when it was all said and done. That's when it all hit me. I realized it was a little selfish of me to go out into the Wasteland to find my own way, my own happiness, and leave my friends and my coltfriend behind to fend for themselves. I'd even left behind some relative comforts for this. I bet the stallion I'd seen hanging from the tree would have loved to live on a plantation, living in reasonable safety, with a steady job that paid caps. Poor pay, yes, but caps were caps.

In the end I'd made my choice. I might be a little selfish, sure. But it was the Wasteland and I only had one life to live. Might as well go see what I could see, rather than spin my wheels on the plantation until I died.

“Y'all look lost.” I blinked back to reality to see that Sunray was looking at me with an amused smile. I shook my head out a little.

“Sorry. Jus' thinkin',” I replied.

“Ah could tell. Had a fun trip?” he teased.

I snorted softly. “Somethin' like dat.”

Sunray nodded. “Well, Ah ain't one for pryin'. Y'all wanna talk about it, ya do it on yer own terms.” He turned to stir the gumbo for a moment. “Ah thought Ah told y'all t'sit an' rest.”

“Ya did,” I said as I walked over to see the stew for myself. “But Ah decided t'clear mah head.”

“Alrigh'.” The zony turned to look at me. “Y'all feelin' bettah?”

I touched my jaw. It was a bit numb but it felt okay. There was a frying pan hanging to my left that was shiny enough to see my own reflection in. After all this - the apocalypse and two hundred years of disuse - the pan still shone almost as bright as if it’d just come from the store. Shiny enough to be used as a mirror. There was a faint scar across my cheek, from the centre of my cheek back to where my jaw connected to my head. It was faint but still fairly visible. “Ah guess. Why she done take de shot anyways?” I asked.

Sunray sighed softly and turned away. I got the impression he wanted me to just forget about it, which wasn't going to happen that easily. You don't get shot and just “forget about it”. It didn't work that way. I waited patiently to see how he'd reply.

“Like Ah'd said, we been havin' problems wit' gangs of raidahs recently,” he began. “An all-zebra gang from east of de Rivah. Dey come in firs' actin' like de usual folk dat come here. Den dey took advantage o' de hospitality, started t'get dangerous. Roughed up a stallion an' robbed him blind. When Ah kicked 'em out, dey came back with deir friends. Threatened t'come in an' take d'place for dey own. Lotta hot air, but some folks here got scared.” Sunray looked over at me and sighed. “Our newes' guard took offence to d'gang an' musta been triggah happy. She mighta though' y'all was snoopin' round de place t'find a way in. Ah've since taken her off de guard rotation.”

I grunted in response. An all-zebra gang of raiders and this mare thought that just because I had stripes, I must have been one of them. Not quite. The coloured stripes should have been a giveaway. Most zebras had black stripes, unlike mine, which were blue. “Ah should have a talk with her 'bout zebras not bein' all de same, and de difference ‘tween zebras an’ zonies.”

Sunray held up a hoof. “Ah already spoke to her while ya was out. Ah ain't seen a mare mo' sorry for somethin' she done. Ah won't have ya harrassin' her ovah an hones' mistake.” He spoke with a deadly calm voice that carried with it a heavy weight of authority. This was a stallion who was pleasant and gentle, but if you crossed him, he would make you pay. I did not want to mess with this stallion.

“Alright. Ah'm sorry.”

“Don' be.” Sunray put a lid on the pot of gumbo. “Things coulda been worse, but dey ain't, so don' go around makin' it worse. Revenge don' solve nothin'.”

I wanted to argue but couldn't. I remembered the Overstallion and the way I had poked and prodded, antagonizing him just to get the last word in, to try and feel like I was in the right no matter how much he wronged me. I didn't have any plans to be snippy with the mare that had shot me but it was entirely possible I would have been. Whether I wanted to or not, I might have accidentally made things worse. If she was sincerely sorry, then it was sincerely fine by me.

“Alright,” was all I said.

“Good. Now dat dat's ovah, Ah can show ya 'round while dinnah cooks,” Sunray said. He made sure the stove was on low heat, then started for the door of the kitchen. I was on his heels, eager to see the rest of the Temple.

~~

The main hall – the sanctuary, as Sunray called it – was beautiful. Better decorated than the room I'd woken up in anyway.

The most prominent feature, dominating all other decorations in the room, were the stained glass windows. I hadn't noticed them from the outside, but now that I was inside I saw that they were everywhere. On either side of the sanctuary were images of two alicorns, one white, one blue, in various situations and locations – fighting a strange-looking dragon, standing in the throne room of castle, things of that nature. The centrepiece of it all was a massive circular window at the back of the sanctuary, the white and blue alicorns on it forming a circle. The windows were a gorgeous sight even with the dull grey light outside. I couldn't imagine what they would be like with bright sunlight streaming through.

There were other, less elaborate decorations that were just as beautiful. Twin rows of ornately carved columns along the polished wooden floor held up a pair of mezzanines. The railings of each of the mezzanines had some engravings along them, depicting twisting vines and bayou flowers. Even the ceiling was given attention. An artist had painted images of a clear blue sky and fluffy white clouds, where birds and pegasi flew in the wake of the twin alicorns. The paint had chipped and faded in places but it was no less beautiful. I caught myself staring up for the longest time, lost in the painted sky, before Sunray caught my attention.

“Impressive, ain' it?” he asked.

“Got dat right.” I turned to look at the circular stained glass window, then at the area underneath. There was a simple wooden table with a white cloth on it, plus the same sun-and-moon disc I'd seen in so many places. Behind it were engraved wooden walls that showed Canterlot castle and rolling hills. I turned to look at Sunray. “How come dis place ain't been destroyed?” There was not a chance all of it was original. It was in too good a condition to look this way after two hundred years in the Wasteland.

Sunray smiled and started walking. “Ah found it like dis,” he explained. “De doors were locked, some o' de windows were broken, but it was practically untouched.”

“Naw. Ah don't believe it.” The building was too perfect. There was almost no damage to the inside that I could see. If it was truly untouched it would have taken hours of work to get it looking this good, and that was even if half this stuff was still available. I figured it'd be pretty hard to find stained glass in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

“Well, y'all bettah. Ah...used t'be good wit' a lockpick. Figured nopony'd think t'come t'a place like dis. Ah was right. Found it untouched. Ah knew it was fate de moment Ah came in.” He walked up toward the podium and looked out over the room, where scattered ponies mingled, sitting on the benches and going about their lives. Some read books, others talked, still more just kinda... sat around, lost in thought. I looked to Sunray. He looked like he belonged there next to the podium. He owned this place and he knew it. I had to admit that maybe he was right.

The clouds outside parted for just a moment and light washed over the Temple. The stained glass window sparkled to life and warm light passed over Sunray. As quick as it happened the clouds were back again and the light was gone.

“So what, y'all jus' decided y'all gonna open it for all?” I asked. If I'd found an untouched place like this I'd keep it to myself. It was hard to find shelter out there in Martingale – and besides, opening it up to the public invited trouble, like with the raiders.

Sunray nodded and turned to look at me. “Ah found a book here. Stories about de Goddesses, Celestia an' Luna. Somethin' dat always came up was how dey was selfless. Dey would give without askin'. An' so, Ah decided Ah'd give without askin'.” He walked down from the podium and motioned for me to follow him. I did without question. I wanted to know more about the place and see what I could find. “Ah opened de doors to whoever needed a place to stay, an' all Ah ever asked was dey help others as well.” The zony nudged open a door to a room where a long table had been set up, and a number of cushions to sit at. “So, Ah guess it were mostly without askin'.”

Mostly without asking. I snorted in amusement at that. I followed him as he moved to a nearby cabinet along the wall. “Ain't dat noble.”

“Ah thought so mahself.” Sunray motioned to a nearby cabinet with an insistent little nod of his head. It took me all of a second to realize what he wanted to me to do. For a moment I got a flashback to the plantation but it was gone as quick as it came. This was different. Not slave labour or difficult work. Like he'd said: he only expected ponies here to help others. “Some don't, s'why we have problems with raidahs. But otherwise, we do alright.”

I pulled out a number of bowls from the cabinet and went around the table. Sunray grabbed some other dishes to help set the table and we were both done within just a few moments. Once it was all said and done Sunray turned to look at me.

“Y'all can stay as long as ya want, an' as long as ya need. Y'all just gotta help out,” he said simply.

Helping out was easy enough and something I could do. “Ah can do dat.”

“Good. Now help me get dinner goin' here.”

~~

Dinner at the Temple was one massive affair.

I counted about 15 ponies at one extremely long, extremely crowded table, which would explain the massive pot of gumbo that Sunray had been making earlier. Just that one pot was barely enough to go around too.

“Glad to see y'all are doin' alright.” A white-coated mare with a yellow mane and tail sat across from me after she'd gotten her bowl of gumbo. She smiled brightly, a smile which faltered the moment I looked up. I still had a nasty scar on my jaw where the bullet had carved its way through. I figured that was what put her off. “I'm... I'm Daisy. Daisy Petal.” She suddenly looked a little bit nervous and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why.

It took a moment for me to figure it out. It clicked just as she continued speaking. “I'm a guard here. I... uh... shot you.”

Well, if there was one way to suddenly turn a pleasant evening around, that was it. I stared at Daisy for a moment while her words bounced around my head. This was her. The mare that figured I was a threat The mare that had tried to take my life. The mare that... looked extremely apologetic about it all.

I really had no idea what to say. What do you say to somepony that shot you - even by accident? I had half a mind to tear into her, right there at the dinner table, and call her out for what she did. Tell her she was stupid for taking the shot. To ask her what the hell she was thinking shooting at somepony she didn't know. I opened my mouth to speak.

“S'alright.”

Sunray had said it best: snapping at her would just make things worse. Revenge solved nothing. Yeah it would be nice to yell at her, but in the end, it would accomplish nothing. I could tell she was sorry. She was practically shaking, right on the edge of her seat, just waiting for an opportunity to apologize and just waiting to hear me say something. The moment I'd spoken I could see her visibly relax – but that expression of guilt never left her face.

It didn't really matter to me how or why she took the shot. Maybe Sunray was right and she just got trigger happy, thought I was one of the bandits they'd been having problems with earlier. Maybe it had been a legitimate accident, a trigger pulled without meaning to. In the end I doubted she'd wanted me dead. Not the way she was looking at me.

“You sure?” she asked.

“Ah am. Ain't nothin' we can do 'bout it now. Ah'm alright, Ah can still talk, Ah ain't dead. Jus' don't do it again.”

Then both of us go to eating. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I had cleared out the bowl of spicy gumbo. Didn't help that Sunray was a damn good cook. I don't know where he managed to get all the ingredients, but somehow he'd found some relatively tasty bell peppers to cook with. It sure beat the gumbo on the plantation- or any other meal that we managed to cook up with our rations.

“Hey. Uh...” Daisy looked up at me again. “Look. I want to make it up somehow. You know, shooting you.” She shrugged a little bit. “I stepped off from guard duty for a while here but I still want to help. You got any jobs around here yet?” she asked.

“Naw.” I hadn't asked Sunray about that. What could I do to help out around a place like this with so many ponies? “Ain't got plans yet.”

Daisy nodded. “Well, I got an idea,” she offered. “I was talking to Sunray earlier and he told me we're running low on supplies. We could head out on a supply run together if you want? You can contribute to the Temple, I can help out, we both win.”

I considered it for a moment. A supply run. I had no idea what to do but if the Temple needed help, I'd help. It was rapidly becoming my new home away from home and I wasn't going to just sit on my ass. I wanted to help out. And like Sunray said: all he asked was that somepony who stayed helped out a little.

“Sure.”

“Alright. See you by the doors in the morning, then?”

I got up and stretched out. I was done with dinner and the crowd was starting to get to me. I didn't mind crowds but with fifteen ponies in one room, every one of them talking to each other, foals crying, ponies laughing... the din was just getting annoying. “Yeah. See y'all then.”

As I left Sunray told me he'd set me up with a room in the back of the Temple, past the kitchen. The room turned out to be rather spartan, even more than Sunray's. No windows, just a little desk and a small bed. I didn’t even care about the lack of windows or how small it was. There was a bed. I’d be sleeping on a bed tonight, which was more than I’d expected. It could have been the worst mattress in the world and I’d have been happy. I closed the door behind me which plunged the room into darkness.

Once I was alone the emotions of the day came flooding back in. It seemed like it had been longer than a day since I left the plantation. The fight with the bandits, wandering the streets, the hanging stallion, getting shot... it left me exhausted.

So many emotions hit me at once. I felt relieved to finally be safe and on my way to adventure. I felt sick from killing the bandits and seeing the hanging stallion. In the end the emotion that won out was exhaustion. A pure, deep set exhaustion that struck all thoughts from my mind in the end. The room went pitch black the moment I closed the door but I eventually found my bed. I didn't even register the stiff mattress under me before I passed out.