Fallout: Equestria - Fallen Wings

“Dad, what’s it like under the clouds?”

The crimson buck just shrugged, reaching over and brushing his hoof through my buzz-cut mane.

“It’s nothing like here, Son.” He replied, but that wasn't an answer!

“But what’s it like!?” I asked again while hopping up and down into his path. Now he was smiling!

“Well! They don't have sunshine or rainbows, and there’s definitely no other Pegasi down there!” I blinked. That was impossible!

“But... there’s sunshine an’ rainbows an’ Pegasusi everywhere!”

“Not beneath the clouds! I told you it was nothing like here, didn’t I?” He grinned, but I still didn’t believe it! … but I couldn't really think about it when my snout was being tickled by red feathers!

“Achoo! Hey! No faaaair!” I shook my nose to try get rid of that tickly feeling while Dad chuckled.

“Anyway, c’mon! It’s your first day at the academy; you want to make a good first impression, right?”

I nodded a lot once I got rid of that tickled feeling!

In the distance, I saw other fillies and colts playing in front of a big cloud building: the Academy! I fluttered my wings and hopped faster towards them.

“If you do really well here, then some day you’ll be able to fly beneath the clouds with me! You’d like that, right?” I turned back to him and nodded a lot again!

“More than anything!”

“Alright then, now go get ‘em, … !”

Huh?

“Uh... what’d ya say, Dad?” Dad blinked, cocking an eyebrow.

“What? Are ya so excited you’ve forgotten your own name? I said: Go get ‘em, … !”

I couldn't hear what he was saying!

I wanted to ask him to say it again... but this time I couldn’t speak! I couldn’t even move! I was stuck!

I felt the clouds shift unstably beneath my hooves, beginning to part.

Dad! Help!

He just smiled as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing was happening while those last bits of cloud gave way.

I fell.

* * * * * * * * *

Fallout: Equestria - Fallen Wings

By Anton

Chapter One: Awakening

"It's not the fall that kills you... it's the sudden stop at the end."

Pain.

A dull, throbbing pain was all I could feel as I slowly opened my eyes to a blurred world of greys and browns. From where I laid, I couldn't discern much of the hazy world around me, but I knew that I was somewhere very, very wrong. These winds were foreign; they were nothing like the winds back at home. They were far too violent, ripping past me intermittently with enough force to almost topple me over as I lay there, attempting to figure out where I was.

I tried to move my legs, my hooves, my wings... but none would obey me. I did manage to lift my head slightly; my neck was still on my side, albeit arguing with me every inch of the way. It felt like every muscle was trying to tear itself apart after only the smallest of movements.

My eyes focused as best as they could, which wasn't much. My surroundings appeared to be nothing more than soft, flowing blurs of dirty grey and mottled brown.

The wind, lashing furiously at my back, was not making me feel safe.

… nor was the taste of copper in my mouth.

"... h-hello?" I called out. My voice had degraded into a raspy whisper.

I listened for what felt like hours.

No response.

I was alone in this place, and everything around me was so different from my home. The puffy, gentle clouds beneath my hooves were replaced by a dirty brown powder littered over a hard grey surface. The calm winds that would have effortlessly carried me through the air had become violent gusts, ripping over my form whenever they pleased.

I needed to move. I needed to get to a safer place.

Despite its painful argument otherwise, I managed to lift my left foreleg. My right hind leg followed suit as I slowly managed to--

The surface broke away beneath my hind leg!

I tried to grab onto anything my hooves could finally reach for, but only dirty powder and clumps of small rocks taunted and followed me as I fell. My vision swam with colours while my world flooded with pain in places I didn't even know I had. I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes as tight as I could, praying to the goddesses to make it stop, praying to bring me home and end this pain. I'd do anything!

I could have sworn that I'd been falling for days before my prayers were finally answered. My body rolled to a halt. My wings were painfully pinned under what I assumed was my back, because I lacked enough feeling to even tell where that was right now. I did my best to control my breathing. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream and I wanted to go home! But more than anything right now, I wanted this pain to go away.

I opened my eyes once more, blinking as hard as I could to wash away the tears that had formed in the corners of my vision. I looked down at my body and held back a whimper; my Carmine-red coat was filthy, covered in so much dirt and blood that I barely recognized it. I tried to move my legs, but each resisted now more than ever as spikes of pain ran through my body at any attempt of movement, regardless of how small.

I gave up.

I'd been colt-napped, beaten, thrown about and then left for dead in this place. I didn't care how or why it happened, all I know is it did and that at that moment I gave up. I let gravity take over and my head fell back into the dirt while I stared up at the sky above. At least the sky didn't abandon me...

...wait.

Pain-heightened senses were definitely a double-edged blade, but one advantage of it was sharpened eyesight! That was the sky above alright! The sky was shining through a massive fluffy grey hole where pastel-coloured blurs with grey and white puffs were darting in and out of view.

Clouds!

Home!

No giving up now! Time for Round 2!

“I’M DOWN HEEERE!”I screamed to the clouds above as loud as my heavy lungs would allow. I wiggled a foreleg in front of me, the best wave I could manage.

There was no response. The tiny coloured blurs darting around the hole above lacked any deviation from their course, was that hole shrinking?

“HEEEEEY!”I screamed again, fear beginning to build deep inside me, could they hear me?

They were going to seal away the sky and lock me out below!

"HEEEEELP! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!"I begged, pleading to those clouds and whoever was up there to swoop down and take me home, before it was too late.

"P-please... d-don't..." I broke down, whimpering through growing sobs, trying to yell to the skies above as the door to my home was slowly shut in my face by those I lived alongside, by those I called friends...

… by those I loved.

I let my body go limp, tears streaming down my cheeks as I didn't even bother to hold them back, watching my life slip through my hooves without any of my friends even thinking to look below for me.

I was below the clouds.

I was on my own.

I gave up.

No need for a Round 3.

* * * * * * * * *

Black.

I couldn't escape it, it was everywhere.

I looked everywhere I could. I ran as far as I could. I flew as high as I could. But no matter what I did, the blackness followed, it's grasp unyielding. I opened my mouth to scream for help, to demand what it wanted, to say anything! But no words left my muzzle. I shut my eyes, trying to believe it wasn't real, but the darkness refused to leave, the only thing I managed to do by closing my eyes was bring a new level of darkness before me. I felt as if it was swallowing me.

Ping!

What was that?

I saw something, didn’t I? I know I did! It was...

Ping!

There it was again!

I span around, or at least I think I did, a black abyss is hard to keep a sense of direction in.

Where did it go? I know it’s...

Ping!

Aha!

It only existed for a moment, but I was certain I found it! I locked onto where it appeared and focused as best I could, would it appear in the same spot again? Would...

Ping!

OWMYEYES!

I didn't move my body for fear of losing the light’s location again, but I did close my eyes for a few moments. That was so bright I felt it stab at the back of my brain!

Ping!

I opened my eyes, sharp pain subsiding thankfully. The light appeared every 10 seconds on the mark.

7...
8...

I squinted my eyes and looked down, enough to avoid looking directly into it again but not enough to lose it’s location

9...

Ping!

10 seconds indeed, and the source was pretty close, just ahead of me.

I began to trot carefully, it could be no more then 30 hoofsteps from me.

8...
9...

I looked down again.

Ping!

No more then 20 hoofsteps now.

It also looked like the light was getting more intense the closer I got, I managed to see my own red coat, and the grayish-white tiles beneath my hooves this time, if only for a moment.

A few more steps.

8...
9...

Ping!

That one was loud!

It didn’t make any sounds before! No fair!

… it also didn’t create a doorway full of blinding light before either.

I had to look away before I ended up with a migraine that could topple one of the Princesses, the light coming from the door had illuminated the entire black abyss and revealed the derelict interior of a cloud home.
The room was suspended in a dim silver hue, broken kitchen tiles decorated the ground and cracked Pegasopalian arches held up the roof along the walls of the interior. The home held a few bits and pieces of ruined Pegasi-furniture but whatever else sat amongst those pieces of comfort was hidden behind a heavy silhouette in the shape of a pony, my own shadow being cast over the room by the door’s blinding illumination.

There wasn't much else in the room, nothing of interest, nothing to be afraid of.

...so why couldn't I look away from that silhouette?

I just couldn’t, I felt that if I did... it’d get me. Somehow.

What was I? A foal scared of his own shadow? Grow up!

I backed up into the door of blinding light, whatever I was backing out into had to be more interesting than staying in there with...

Shining, orange eyes.

* * * * * * * * *

I screamed.

What was that!? What... what was that? What kind of... of nightmare...

...am I in?

I slowly regained control of my breathing, through hyperventilating gasps I had noticed that where I woke up was nothing like where I had… passed out?

It was still very brown, but I was indoors... or at least the below-clouds equivalent of being indoors. The ceiling and floor were made up of dark, rotting wooden planks. The walls were the same, but partially hidden under a layer of tattered wallpaper that must have been slowly peeling for centuries. The once illuminating moon and twinkling stars of the night sky had dimmed to nothing more than a faded fresco of the past.

To my left was a table topped with a flickering candle and an empty glass bottle, past that was a boarded up window which small beams of cloudy light still managed to sneak through gaps between the lighter-coloured boards.

I looked down, I'd been covered in a blanket and was laying on a bed, past the end of the bed was a door left slightly ajar.

I was suddenly so very glad I used to read those pre-war comic books to know what life below the clouds looked like, or else I'd probably be panicking at my surroundings.

Wait. Why wasn't I panicking?

I passed out somewhere in that wasteland, and now I'm in somepony's... something's house...

I gripped the blankets in my teeth, immediately regretting it as the taste of alcohol, blood, and something else flooded my mouth. I swiftly spat it out behind me onto the other side of the bed so I could see what kind of state I was in.
To my surprise, I'd been bandaged from fetlock to withers, in some places blood had stained the ivory cloth to a pinkish-red but aside from that I seemed to be in good condition. I lifted my hooves curiously, which thankfully barely resisted, nothing remained of the earlier pains but a phantom ache and some slightly stained bandages.

"Well, that's a good sign..." I whispered to myself, if only to make sure I could speak again.

I laid my head back down onto the pillow to try make sense of my situation, what happened to me? I remembered... being in pain, falling from the clouds? What happened before that... the academy? Must have been a dream, that was years ago, I was still a colt... and I definitely didn't fall from the clouds that day, I’d remember. So thank you very much, overactive-imagination, for trying to ruin a good memory!
… it was a good memory, wasn't it?
I clopped my hoof to my head a few times to try shuffle that day to the front of my mind... but I couldn't remember a thing.

“Well fuck...” I groaned, so much for making sense of the situation.

I raised myself to my hooves and climbed down off the bed, the metal frame creaking and squeaking as I did.

Hoofsteps.

My thoughts suddenly shot to how I got here, and what might be waiting for me on the other end of that door.

The steps grew louder, closer.

I panicked, looking around the room. The window was boarded up, I couldn't jump out. The bed was big, but it wasn't large enough to hide under. Was there anything I could use to defend myself with!?

The door swung open slowly.

I grabbed the only thing I could and prepared myself.

The Beige-coloured Unicorn entered the room with a smile, before tilting his head and lowering his tinted glasses curiously as he saw a Carmine-red Pegasus colt brandishing an empty potion bottle in his muzzle, backed up against the opposing wall.

"Sorry kiddo, but we used all of that ta’ heal your wounds, nothing left to suck out of it." He chuckled, making me flush red from embarrassment. I put the potion back onto the table beside the flickering candle while the Unicorn was looking over my bandages. My eyes widened as his horn began glowing a faint yellow and all my bandages seemed to unwrap themselves from my body, surrounded by glistening yellow hues. All my cuts and bruises had disappeared without a trace under the wraps.

So that’s what Unicorn magic looked like...

"Well, you seem healthy enough... let's test your noggin. My name is Doc. Can you say Doc?"

I looked up, feigning an offended look.

"Yes, Doctor."

He chuckled again.

"Jus' Doc actually, but awright! Good! Now, how about your name?" He smiled.

I opened my mouth to answer but I felt no response forming on my tongue, the Beige Unicorn just sat there patiently waiting for my reply, gazing over the tinted glasses balancing on the end of his snout while I mentally scrambled for a response like a colt falling from...

I felt myself shudder violently, it hadn't been on purpose but it definitely got his attention.

"Y’awlright? Ya haven't got Amnesia or sumfin' do ya?" He asked, I blinked a bit as I pondered the question. I had read about that before, it was when a pony lost all their memories, usually through blunt trauma. I couldn't have Amnesia, I remembered quite a few things! Although in retrospect, they were all scattered, unrelated... and my name didn't appear to be important enough to reside alongside them. My recent ordeal however...

I fell from the clouds.

I nodded to him, it’d be simpler then listing off what I did and didn't know.

"Ah, well that's a damn shame... c'mon kiddo." He sighed, motioning towards the door he had entered through with a hoof before turning around and began trotting back through it, I looked up just in time to see his Cutie Mark: A pair of potion bottles, the purplish-red liquid in both half-empty. "We got some food down here if you're hungry!"

'We'?

I hoofed the pile of medical wrap into the corner of the room I had stood in and followed him out of pure curiosity, though my stomach told me I was hungry I wasn't paying it any attention.

He walked down a rotting wooden stairwell which descended along the right wall of the next room, ending with a ninety-degree turn out into the room at the end of the wall.
This room had quite a bit more structural damage than the room I had slept in, but it also had significantly more life in it. The walls were made of rotting wood much like the previous room, shelves and the decorations which once sat upon them lay scattered around the edges of the room, I noticed dusty picture frames, pieces of broken pottery buried amongst flora growing inside and once colourful figurines of ponies scattered about missing limbs, bases, or laying in so many pieces I couldn't tell what kind of pony they were once supposed to be.

Once I descended the stairs there were two more boarded up windows to my left surrounding what I assumed was the front door sitting opposite to the wall that once held all those trinkets. It would have definitely once been a welcoming sight for any visitor.
In the center of the room, in front of the charred skeleton of a fireplace lay a brown pair of saddlebags and a few unopened tins circling a small, wavy metal object connected to... a spark battery? No, it was smaller then a spark battery, but it definitely seemed like it served the same purpose due to the soft whirring that usually accompanies some sort of power supply. There were also three grey mats laid out around the metal object, they looked far more comfortable then the rotting wood that made up the remainder of the floor, so I guessed that's where 'they' had been resting.

"So..." The Docto- err, 'Doc' began. "Tell me what ya can remember." He asked as he lay down on one of the mats and pulled over an open tin with some orange stuff inside.

"Um..." I started, unsure of where to begin or what to say, so I did the second-best thing any Pegasus would do.

Stand there awkwardly like a foal. Genius!

"...I don't remember much... I fell from the clouds I think. I must have landed pretty hard 'cause I couldn't even move..."

Or see straight.

Doc rolled his eyes in a tell-me-something-I-don’t-know fashion.

"Well yes, when we found you, you were half-dead! If you hadn't’ve been screamin’ to Celestia we would've thought you were dead and moved on, you had more broken bones then a Raider after meetin’ a Steel Ranger!"

I blinked at his metaphor. Raiders? Steel Rangers?

He caught my confused stare and buried his face in his hooves, motioning to one of the nearby mats with his head. "Siddown kiddo, I'll explain."

Offer accepted!

I walked over and laid myself down on the mat beside him, it was surprisingly warm. The metal, wavy thing must be some sort of heating device, it would explain the need for a power supply.
Doc lowered his head and ate from the metal can, the orange stuff was food? Carrots maybe? Regardless, he raised his head again and my attention locked onto him... and his orange-speckled muzzle.

Don’t laugh... whatever-my-name-is, don’t do it!

"The Wasteland's inhabitants come in three flavours. 'Nice', 'Don't-give-a-damn', and 'Those-who-think-you'd-go-well-with-Ketchup'. Us, Steel Rangers and Raiders fall under those categories, in that order."

What.

I froze, my brain trying to wrap my mind around the concept of ‘Raiders’, most notably the fact that they ate other ponies!?

Remember that laugh I was holding back?

Neither do I.

He continued his explanation.

"...then there are also Slavers, they ain't as bad as Raiders, just don't look helpless or alone near 'em. They'd happily enslave and sell ya without a second thought. Just more caps for them."

"Caps?" I asked curiously.

"Yeah, you know what bottlecaps are, dont'cha kid? The metal disks on top of cola bottles?" He asked, I nodded after a bit of thinking.

"Y-yeah, I know them! But... they're your... currency?"

He tilted his head a bit, those glasses sliding down his snout to reveal his confused expression.

Please tell me I didn't just make a foal of myself...

… I totally did.

"...yeeeeeah? 'Cept out in places like Fillydelphia and Falls, they trade in ponies."

One group eats ponies, the other sells ponies... what a nice place!

The main door to the room swung open to my left, and through the grey void entered a green-armoured, black and brown-feathered beast with claws, paws, and piercing golden eyes.

A Griffin!?

That’s it, I’m dead.

"Hey boss, when're we takin' off?" He spoke in a low, bored drawl.

I'm... not dead?

Doc turned to him, then to me, then glanced up at the ruined structure of the once homely room around us... or maybe he was just staring off into space, probably through that large collapsed hole in the corner of the ceiling.

"Pretty soon Sever. Ya sure you don't want to have some breakfast?"

"I'll pass." He remarked before turning tail and walking back outside.

I sat there for a moment as I watched that main door slowly swing shut, Doc not seeming to notice my concerned expression as he continued to enjoy his canned orange.

"Doc..." I began, he removed his muzzle from the can and looked over at me. "...you travel with... a Griffin?"

"Mmhmm! Ol' Sever's been with me for two years now, saved my hide more times than I can count!" He chuckled softly, looking towards that door which had been left slightly ajar by the large creature's departure. "Why'ja ask?"

I pondered if he knew about the history between Pegasi and Griffins after the war, I may have forgotten a lot, but I definitely remembered that we fought and took their lands for our own... but how would he? Griffins were always dangerously prideful creatures, they'd never admit to being defeated by mere ponies.

Regardless, I was glad that this Griffin didn't seem to hold grudges of times gone past... right?

"...no reason, just... my first time seeing one."

He nodded, returning to his meal.

I found my gaze falling upon that wavy heating device while my thoughts wandered, numerous questions old and new surfaced around my head begging to be answered: How did I fall from the clouds? Why did they save me? Could anypony else have fallen as well?
The first question eluded me, a blinding white hole where its answer should have sat. The second answer seemed obvious enough, they said they were nice and everything I had seen of them so far backed this up.
I preferred not to dwell on the latter, from Doc’s metaphor and my own memory of yesterday, I probably wouldn’t be laying here breathing if they hadn't taken me in and healed me like they did. A fall from the clouds was a fall nothing was meant to return from.

A few more questions held my attention until an awkward guuuuuurgle filled the room from my direction, and I flushed as Doc looked up at me.

"I'll just uh, be eating my breakfast now." I chuckled sheepishly, mustering up the most non-embarrassed smile I could, which probably looked more silly than an honest one would have. I leaned down, gripping the can in my hooves and grabbing the cap of the can in my teeth, the metal strained a bit as I pulled before popping open, revealing a familiar orange and yellow mix within. At some point in the past it might have been a canned vegetable like carrots perhaps, but now it was just canned-mush.

Oh well, breakfast time!

* * * * * * * * *

"Can I have some more of that mushy stuff, whatever it was!?" I pleaded, practically bouncing! The canned mix may have looked like it was 200 years past it's expiration date but it sure didn't taste like it! It had more flavour than a lifetime of cloud grain ever did! Doc just laughed and shook his head, grabbing the two empty cans in his teeth and tossing them into the charred remains of the room's fireplace behind him, scooping the remaining few into one of his saddlebags.

"'Fraid not. C'mon kiddo, it's time for us to leave. It isn't safe to linger in the wastes for too long."

His lesson from earlier sprung to mind and I decided to take his word for it, the deliciousness-in-a-can could wait. I got back onto my hooves beside him, helping him wrap up the mats in a bundle using his magic and some string.

After everything else was neatly tucked away into one of his saddlebags Doc moved over to that spark battery-like power supply and reached into his other saddlebag, taking out a small metallic-grey tube with a green screen and tapping his hoof to the display a few times as he levitated it in front of him.

Eventually a small click could be heard as the side of the device popped open, revealing numerous ports and wires within, one of the latter being magically tugged out across the floor until it connected to the side of that small power generator. "Bring those to Sever will ya? I gotta re-pack this contraption." He smiled as he motioned towards the bundle of mats sitting between us. I hadn't realized I'd been staring.

Wait, bring them to...

The Griffin!? Absolutely no--

"Um-- Sure!"

Why brain? Why don’t you listen?

I bit down on the mats by the knot and began trotting to the door, the bundle was a little heavy but it was only a short journey outside... to the Griffin. I swallowed my fears and nudged my muzzle between the door frame and the slightly-ajar door, opening it and moving outside.

A cold wind and the smell of smoke greeted me as I caught my first real glimpse of the outside world. We had been resting in a cottage atop a small slope, snuggled securely into the underside of a steep, overhanging hill behind it. The path from the door led down that slope a good distance towards a cobblestone road before the remains of once-colourful flora obscured the rest of it. That cobblestone road led off towards the horizon, where the silhouette of a city long dead awaited it.

"You gonna hand those over or not?"

I froze.

It took all the courage I could muster to turn to my right, the Griffin was sitting on his haunches puffing on a cigarette and looking at me with an expression of utter boredom.

"Y-yeah, here." I managed to respond, moving a few hoofsteps towards him before dropping the bundle beside him, the larger creature leaning in with his claw--

Oh goddesses not my throat! Not my--

--and taking the strung-together bundle of mats in a talon, lifting them over to his side where he shifted a long device made of metal tubes and wooden grips over a bit to drop them into the pouch on his far side.

Well... that was to be expected.

Why was I so scared of a grudge that was two centuries old and probably gathering dust? This Griffin, Sever, hasn't acted hostile towards me once...

"Kid..."

...yet.

I looked up, Sever was working the end of the cigarette around in his beak and staring off into the distance. "...you don’t even have a Dashite brand... how did you end up down here?"

Dashite? I frantically searched every corner of my brain, the word was familiar... but its meaning escaped me. Besides, right now I had to respond to a question which I failed to answer myself earlier.

"I uh... I fell, I don’t remember how, or much of what happened before that... only... ”

A blinding white.

“... a big light hitting me... I think? I’m not sure."

The Griffon's bored expression didn’t change, he just took a long pull on his cigarette and blew out two rings from the holes in his beak.

"Huh... well you aren’t the first pony to fall from the clouds... but you'd wanna find your way back above them. Sooner rather than later."

"There are others?" I asked, curious.

Sever rolled his eyes, taking the cigarette out of his beak and into his claw.

"Were others, here-and-there. I dunno what happened to 'em. What do I look like, a record-keeper?"

No, a feather-covered slice-and-dice machine.

"No, sorry." I sighed, turning to look at that city in the distance his gaze was locked onto. I found my own gaze drifting above it, staring at those clouds that hid the beautiful sky above like a never-ending curtain. "How am I supposed to get back above the clouds, Sever?" I looked to the black and brown-feathered Griffin, he shrugged.

"Find some Enclave that ain't in vaporize-everything mode. Ask 'em to bring you back with 'em."

Enclave. Another word I felt I should know.

I was about to ask Sever about what Enclave were before I heard a creaking sound behind me from the doorway, I turned to see Doc trotting outside to us, both of his brown saddlebags loaded and draped over his sides as he pulled the door shut behind him.

"Alright you two, ready to go? Friendship City is only a couple of hours on hoof from here." He smiled over to us. I nodded a bit, I was a lot safer with these two then I would be on my own.
I must have looked rather unsure because I suddenly felt the heavy hoof of Doc on my shoulder, a confident grin on his face. “Ya’know, if memory serves me right, there is another Pegasus living there!”

My eyes went wide. Was he serious!?

“He could probably help you out!”

By Celestia’s mane, yes!

I beamed, looking off into the distance at the silhouette of that ‘Friendship City’, it offered me my first goal towards getting home: Meeting this Pegasus.

I stretched my legs in anticipation of the journey, starting to do the same with my wings only to find a dull, heavy ache coursing through each of them from my shoulders all the way to both wingtips, small-yet-painful stabbing pains scattering through anywhere I tried to stretch more than a little.

"Hey Doc?" I asked worriedly, he turned. "How bad were my wings when you found me? I... can't remember being able to feel them at all before I... well, passed out." He gave a sad, sympathetic look.

"They were preeeeety bad... multiple hairline fractures all along your ulna and carpometa..." He caught my confused expression. "... your wings weren’t broken, but they were damn close. So even after all that healing and a good night's rest, you still need to rest them for at least a week before you put them under any strain, okay?"

I nodded, a little disappointed that I couldn’t take to the air, but it didn't lower my spirits much, I had another Pegasus to meet after all!

Doc trotted forward down that path from the cottage, Sever taking one last pull on his cigarette before crushing it under one of his hindpaws and following suit with that long device slung over his back by a rope. I began to follow behind the two before giving one look back at the derelict home we were leaving, beginning to wonder who were the ponies who used to live there? Would they have minded us using their house for rest? Were they Unicorns, or Earth ponies, or maybe even Pegasi? Did they survive the ...

My gaze turned back to my two saviours ahead and the world surrounding us, that last question was downright stupid to ask. Nothing could survive the bombs unless it hid above that cloud curtain... or a... a... stable! Aha! My brain was finally working with me! Over one hundred stables were built all across Equestria to save ponies from the fallout they would otherwise have had to face after the bombs fell.

Maybe they did survive!

"C'mon kid!" Came the low, annoyed call of Sever from ahead. The two were standing there waiting for me while I day-dreamed like a foal.

"Sorry!" I flushed, galloping to catch up to them. It felt good to use my legs again I'd admit! Doc smiled and the two turned around once more, the three of us travelling down the old cobblestone path towards our destination.

"So, kiddo." Doc began, looking back to me as he walked. "I know you lost yer memories, but if you're gonna be travelling with us..." I thought I caught Sever rolling his eyes out of the corner of my vision, "... ya need a name!"

A name?

"So what's it gonna be, hm?" Doc finished, looking over his tinted spectacles at me with a grin resting across his muzzle, awaiting my response.

'A pony's name reflects who they are inside!' I vaguely remembered being told once, but the identity of the pony who said this to me was long lost somewhere within the damaged annals of my memory. So what was my name before I fell?
Did it sound awesome and cool?
Was it caring and compassionate?
Was I the town fool and had a name that would reflect this somehow?

Now Sever had turned to stare at me with his bored, soul-piercing gaze.

Probably the Latter!

Think of something, they’re waiting!

'A pony's name reflects who they are...' ...so who was I? Who am I?

'I fell from the clouds...'

...

"Fallen."

Footnote: Level up!
New perk: Swift Learner (1) - You’ve always been quick to catch onto things and the world around you is no exception! With this Perk each level will give you an additional +10% bonus whenever you earn experience points.
Quest Perk added: Aerodynamic (1) - You may not be Rainbow Dash but those wings aren't just for show! You now gain a 1 point bonus to your Endurance and Agility while in midair.

This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat; a familiarity with the source material may aid your understanding.

You can read Fallout Equestria by Kkat onEquestria Daily

If you enjoy Fallout Equestria Side Stories, you will want to check theFallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and theFallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan

The Ponychan group is also a hatching ground that you can join if you want to share your experience, writing or comments with us.

(Message from lé Author:

Unending thanks to Kkat for creating Fallout: Equestria!

Also thanks to the authors of every side story out there, you’ve all inspired me to tip my hat into writing! :3

This has been the first chapter of the first story I've ever written, so thanks to you for spending time to read it!

Also many thanks to my friend Ace for burning out his brain in the quest to help me become a better writer!

Okay, I'm done with the torrent of thanks!

All comments, critique, questions, etc. are all very much appreciated. They help me improve!

~Anton)