“I record the knowledge of our ancestors for future generations.”

Once upon a time, in the desolate land of the Equestrian Wasteland, where once Harmony ruled, a twisted, horrid mare reigned instead. Nopony knew where she came from, but everypony knew her name: Misery, the Raider Queen.

Under her leadership, the raiders, ever a menace of the Wasteland, became its rulers. They roamed the land, taking whatever and whoever they wanted. If settlements were fortunate, they would be satisfied with a toll, often a very big one. But often the raiders sought to slake more violent needs, and they would hurt, wound, rape, and murder whoever they came upon.

But none of them could match the cruelty, brutality, or lust of their queen. Misery-

“Hang on.”

I frowned at Aite as she interrupted Cardinal Tale, the Storykeeper of the Mustang Tribe. The enthralling vision around us she had conjured froze.

I still marveled at her spell. She had cast it when she began her tale, and through it, she was able to fill the room with images. No, images didn’t do this spell justice. Visions. Yes, that was a better description. The tribe’s Storykeeper had conjured visions and the room around us disappeared, though I was still able to see Cardinal Tale, as well as Jack, Aite, Khan, and myself in a loose arc facing her.

The spell can’t hide living beings… I’d mused, looking around, fascinated. It’s like the illusion spells in Stable Eight, except this fills out the entire space around the caster, and isn’t just being cast on a specific spot like a ceiling or a wall… Using such a spell to convey a story about the past is quite brilliant!

When the Storykeeper had begun her tale, she had cast a vision of an empty, barren land, which quickly filled up with raiders, ponies covered in blood and wearing armor with spikes and chains, and all armed. At the same time, though, a certain flaw of the spell was revealed; well, maybe “flaw” was too big of a word, more like a shortcoming. The images themselves barely moved. Even when the Storykeeper had shown us raiders attacking a town and killing ponies, or them taking bags full of bottle caps and food, they were standing still or frozen in movement. Maybe the spell was incomplete?

Also, the facial features of the raiders and their victims were obscured by shadows, but perhaps it was tied to how the spell worked? If my guess was correct and she was projecting her memories or thoughts, then if she had been told about those events and not seen them, then she wouldn’t know the faces of the raiders… or her.

She stood on an elevation, looking down on the raiders. Like them, she was clad in rough leathery barding adorned in spikes and chains, though hers was cleaner. Like Jack had mentioned, there was a crown - of sorts; it looked more like a wreath - made out of barbed wire on her head.

That couldn’t be comfortable to wear, I remarked, wondering briefly if the barbed wire hadn’t simply got caught up in her mane and she couldn’t get it out. My eyes trailed down the two pigtails she had braided her pi-

“Why is she pink?” Aite’s question interrupted my train of thought.

As I glanced at Cardinal Tale, I noticed the Storykeeper was just as confused by the question as I was. “Because that’s how she looked?” she replied, her eyebrow raised.

Aite frowned as she looked at the projection of the vibrant pink raider unicorn with dark pink mane. “So you’re telling me that Misery, the Raider Queen, the Terror Incarnate, Laughing Carnage, and whatever else she had been called… was pink?”

“Um, yes?” Cardinal Tale replied, releasing her spell and causing the vision to disperse, making the mostly empty hall around us visible again.

“Wow, I lost so much respect for her,” Aite scoffed, shaking her head in disappointment.

“Why would you hold any respect for a mass murderer?” I questioned, even more surprised about that than this whole problem the bat pony apparently had with the color pink.

“I mean in the sense that I wouldn’t wanna fuck with her if she was still alive,” she retorted, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, how could anybody take her seriously with that pink coat? She looks ridiculous!”

“Well,” Jack said, sounding annoyed, “the fact that she murdered a lot of people-”

“Yeah, guess we know what she was overcompensating for,” Aite interrupted him, snorting. “Seriously, how come nobody shot her dead before she became the Raider Queen?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, not understanding what had that to do with the color of her coat and mane.

“Bright colors are easier to spot,” Jack replied, “meaning they are easier to shoot at. This is why most of you ponies living in the Wasteland now have coats in darker colors, like shades of gray or brown or just straight-up black. Natural selection at its best. Sure, there are still ponies with bright coloring here and there, but considering that raiders spend most of their time getting into firefights it’s really rare to see one such pony among them… or for them to live too long,” he remarked, shrugging.

I nodded thoughtfully, seeing the wisdom in his assessment. I’ve been aware that my own coat was easy to spot after all, but it hadn’t occurred to me how difficult living would be for an average Wastelander who had been born with a bright colored coat and mane. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen too many ponies like that since leaving my Stable; truly, Jack had said it best.

Natural selection…

“Misery’s survival to the point she had become the ruler of all raiders would be the testament to her skills, then,” I summarized.

“Exactly. Now, can the two of you shut up and not interrupt?” Jack asked, glaring at both me and Aite. “I actually wanna hear the rest of this.”

Aite snorted. “Okay, fanboy,” she replied, rolling her eyes, while I merely turned my attention back to Cardinal Tale, as I was also curious about the story.

In the corner of my eye, I could see Jack staring at the bat pony with annoyance. Meanwhile, the two Mustangs exchanged amused glances, and with a nod from Khan, the Storykeeper cast her spell again. A wave spread from her horn, obscuring the hall in the visions.

The scene had changed. Now we were standing before a sight quite familiar to me: the sealed door of a Stable, though this one with the number “13” written on it.

“It was unto this Wasteland that the Stable Guardian had emerged from the confines of Stable Thirteen,” Cardinal Tale resumed, and as she spoke, the vision of the massive Stable door began to slide open - a bit disjointedly, with the image flickering - revealing a pony standing behind it bathed in light.

So, this was the Stable Guardian…

He was a pegasus, of course, and except for his coat and mane colors - very light yellow coat and golden mane, with tinges of gray, and a white star above his eyes - resembled Khan a lot. Powerfully built with a broad chest and toned muscles, though not as tall. Even their age seemed similar. He was clad in a suit of Stable barding, though one that had been reinforced with leather for better protection… which was somewhat strange, since I would have thought that he would have been sent out with standard Stable security barding.

“The Water Talisman of Stable Thirteen became corrupted and stopped working, dooming everypony inside. And so the Overmare sent out the pony who soon would be known as the Stable Guardian to the Wasteland to search for a replacement, believing his wings would allow him to complete this task swiftly and safely in the unknown world.”

“I recall hearing that he was younger than this,” Jack interrupted this time. “Like, way younger.”

“You are correct,” the Storykeeper replied, once again pausing the vision, “but it was only my direct predecessor that created this spell. This is the youngest he had known our first Khan,” she said, waving her hoof at the Stable Guardian.

So this spell does conjure visions based on the unicorn’s memory, I mused, staring at the Stable Guardian’s face, which unlike the faces of all the previous ponies wasn’t obscured. He appeared to be around the same age as Khan was now… or actually, maybe even a bit older.

“Look who’s interrupting now,” Aite's remark brought me out of my thoughts. Glancing at her, I saw Jack scowl at her, but she ignored him and added, “What’s the difference if he was, I dunno, forty-ish like in this vision or-”

“Sixteen.”

Surprised, I turned to Khan, expecting he would elaborate… even as comprehension of what he had just said dawned on me.

“What?” Aite asked before I could even think of that question, though by her tone she also knew the answer.

Khan smiled and as calmly as before said, “My grandfather was sixteen when he first left his Stable.”

Just sixteen? Great Goddesses…

“What?!” Aite repeated; glancing at her, I saw her looking at Khan with shock. “You’re telling me that the entire Wasteland was saved by a teenager?!”

“Well,” Khan hummed, clearly amused, then nodded at Jack, “a lot of other people helped, like the Bloodtalons. But we’re getting ahead of the tale,” he added, turning to Cardinal Tale.

The Storykeeper cleared her throat (while Aite murmured “Holy shit,” under her breath) and resumed. “The founder of our tribe emerged into the hostile Wasteland, in search of the water talisman.”

The entrance to the Stable disappeared. I had to fight off the urge to jerk as we suddenly found ourselves far above the ground, despite still feeling the floor under my hooves. The vision had changed to show the Stable Guardian flying above the Wasteland.

“However, even with his ability to fly, he couldn’t avoid crossing the raiders in his search.”

The vision shifted again, and once again I could see solid ground beneath my hooves. The Stable Guardian stood before us, his wings spread as he faced a group of three raider ponies. Behind him was a collection of huts; he was protecting a village.

“Having been raised in a Stable meant that the Stable Guardian had never fought in his life. Never had to battle for his very survival. However, at the same time, being raised in a Stable meant that the Stable Guardian was raised on the Old World values of friendship, love, and standing against evil. Despite never fighting before, he faced the raiders when they came to terrorize a settlement and defeated them.”

The vision changed, with the raiders turned around, fleeing from the pegasus.

He... let them run away?

While I commended his decision to not end their lives, letting them just leave meant they could go on to cause more harm to others. That was just… irresponsible. Before I could ask a question as to why he spared them, the scene changed again. Once again we were shown the empty wastes, with the Stable Guardian standing before us.

But he was not alone.

“His good heart and zeal began to inspire others. It wasn’t long before the Stable Guardian found a group of friends who wished to help him in his mission to save his Stable.”

There were four other ponies beside the Stable Guardian, and-

“WHAT IS THAT?!” I exclaimed, rushing closer to the image.

“Oh for the love of…” I heard a griffin groan behind me, but I utterly ignored him, too captivated by the beautiful creature before me.

It was easily twice as big as an average pony. The creature towered over me, standing on four strong legs, each ending with paws roughly the same size as my hooves. It was covered in brown and black fluffy fur. Its canine features brought to my mind Rexio, but this was definitely not a hellhound that had just hunched down to stand on all fours.

This creature had two heads.

“What is this magnificent creature?” I asked more calmly, mesmerized.

“Oh,” I heard Khan exclaim, “that’s-”

“Please don’t,” Jack interrupted him.

Annoyed, I glanced behind me. Jack was deadpanning at the Mustang’s leader, who in turn looked at him with surprise.

“‘Don’t’ what?”

“Don’t over-explain,” Jack answered, then pointed at me. “The good doctor has a habit of exploding with questions at every new bit of information and getting overly excited. Especially when it relates to a creature she had never seen before, as both of us can attest to,” he added, nodding at Aite. The bat pony covered her mouth with a hoof and giggled. “We’d spend a whole day before she would calm down. That’s an orthros,” Jack said, turning to me. “Two-headed dog, they were around even before the war so that’s not a mutation like brahmin, non-sapient, pretty sure they’re almost extinct. Let’s move on,” he said to Cardinal Tale.

“Wait sweetie, you said they existed before the war?” I repeated, turning back to the image. “I’ve never even heard of an animal such as an ‘orthros’! Did the Stable Guardian befriend it? Can you show me some more images of these orthros?” I asked Cardinal Tale- wait no, I had to do this first! “Audio recording of Doctor Angel,” I said to my PipBuck after pressing a button to start recording, “number 3.01. I have learned about a species called ‘orthros’; like the brahmin that evolved from cattle, they seem to be naturally bicepha-uhm!” I grunted in annoyance as talons grasped my muzzle; when had he even walked over?!

“See what I mean?” Jack told the two Mustangs, then turned to me. “Stop wasting everybody’s time, you can do this bit later.”

With those words, he released me. Massaging my muzzle (and ignoring the glare Jack was giving me), I made a mental note to ask Cardinal Tale about the Stable Guardian’s orthros later as I turned off my PipBuck recorder.

The Storykeeper cleared her throat once again and resumed. “And as the Stable Guardian trekked through the Wasteland with his five friends in search of the water talisman, just as he had inspired old world values in them, he too learned something that in the confines of his Stable he never could: how to appreciate freedom.”

I frowned a little, unsure what she could mean by that, but I was more focused on the four ponies standing beside the Stable Guardian and the orthros to think too much about it. Unlike the Stable Guardian, they, like Misery and other raiders before, had their faces obscured. I could think of only one reason why the tribe’s Storykeeper didn’t know what exactly they looked like, and it made me feel anxious about where this part of the story could go.

“And from one in particular,” Cardinal Tale added as the vision shifted, “he learned what love is.”

Now everypony was gone, except for the Stable Guardian and one of the obscured ponies. They stood close, with the pegasus’s wing wrapped around the other’s body, and their foreheads touching. Was this… Khan’s grandmother, then? But, surely, the Storykeeper would have known what she had looked like then, wouldn’t she?

“Eventually, with the help of his friends, the Stable Guardian found the salvation of his Stable.”

The vision shifted, and now the pegasus stood in the center, surrounded by his friends (with the orthros’s tail wagging) as he held aloft a water talisman in his hoof. Ruins of what once was a city, with big toppled buildings, surrounded them.

“But at the same time…”

The vision shifted.

Now all six of them (well, seven if you counted the orthros as two I suppose) had turned outward, looking around them, the Stable Guardian’s eyes widened and wings spread, and both of the orthros’s heads snarling and the fur on the backs of their necks bristled.

“... Misery found them.”

Around them stood raiders, outnumbering them three to one. But worst of all, on top of the remains of a nearby collapsed building, towering a good five yards above the Stable Guardian and his friends, was the Raider Queen.

“Okay,” Aite spoke up; glancing at her, I saw her grimacing as she looked up at the image of Misery. “Screw what I said earlier, she’s still terrifying.”

Turning to Cardinal Tale, I asked (even though I could already deduce the answer), “What happened next?”

“The Raider Queen’s raiders attacked them. Only the Stable Guardian and his faithful orthros managed to escape.” The Storykeeper paused to look at the four friends of the pegasus. “Our first Khan never spoke much about that painful day, nor about his friends, as thinking about them filled him with too much sorrow, but even decades later he would hold a remembrance for them in private.”

They must have really meant a lot to him, I mused sadly, looking at the four shadows, even as they disappeared to give way to a new vision. To mourn their deaths for decades, even though he couldn’t have known them long…

Now once again Cardinal Tale’s spell showed us standing at the entrance to the Stable Guardian’s Stable, except this time he was facing somepony.

“Though distraught, the Stable Guardian still completed his task and returned to his Stable with the Water Talisman. However, as on his way back he mourned the death of his friends and contemplated everything he had seen in the Wasteland with them, the suffering the raiders spread in Misery’s name, he decided he could not return to his family and friends until after he did everything in his power to stop the Raider Queen. But the Overmare didn’t want to hear about it.”

Wait, what?

“It didn’t matter to her how much the ponies on the Outside suffered. While she felt for them, her first duty was to keep the Stable Dwellers she served as Overmare safe. When the Stable Guardian warned her that the raiders would eventually come for the Stable, she dismissed his worries, believing that they would never be able to find them, let alone get inside. Furthermore, though she was sympathetic at first, eventually she got so tired of their argument that the Overmare accused him of seeking revenge for the friends he lost and putting the Stable in danger because of this, and gave him one last chance to make a choice: return inside the Stable, or leave for the Wasteland and be cast out. The Stable Guardian chose the latter.”

Stunned, I stared at the next image, of the Stable Guardian walking away from the closed Stable door; his eyes, though full of determination, had tears formed in their corners.

My thoughts went back to my own exile. This… this was different. Even though both of us were cast out because of our desire to help others, I, a pony who broke Stable laws (however short-sighted they were) in order to do so, was given a fair trial and was judged not solely by my Overmare. But the Stable Guardian, who did nothing wrong besides disagreeing with his Overmare, after he had saved the entire Stable by finding a Water Talisman in the Wasteland, was given an ultimatum to stay or leave forever. And yet… he still chose to leave.

Chose to return to the nightmare outside, to the raider-controlled Wasteland, where his friends died, and gave up on the safety and comfort of a Stable.

As the vision shifted around me, I returned my attention to Cardinal Tale. “And so, the Stable Guardian returned to the Wasteland,” she intoned; her spell now showed the Stable Guardian standing on top of a hill, with the orthros beside him. “Determined to free the Wasteland from Misery, he waged war on her raiders. Though he was alone, the Stable Guardian attacked the raider outposts, cutting the supply lines, freeing captured ponies, and preventing attacks on settlements. To list all of his daring feats would take hours to recount. He singlehoofedly both saved Friendship City from raider attack…”

The vision changed around us as she spoke. My eyes widened at the sight that lay before us, a vast, dark body of water that stretched towards the horizon. Massive ruins, bigger than anything I had seen, surrounded us along the shore, and directly before us on a small island was a giant statue of a pony clad in a toga holding a torch. A partially collapsed bridge connected it to the mainland, with ropes tied in destroyed parts so it was still possible to cross it.

Is that… the Statue of Friendship? I thought, recognizing the landmark from my history books. So Friendship City is located inside of it? I did wonder how a settlement in this harsh and unforgiving Wasteland could be named such…

I turned my gaze from it to the sea, truly wondrous even though it was just an illusion, but the very next heartbeat it disappeared. Suppressing a disappointed groan, I waited as the vision reformed. I wished Cardinal Tale had allowed the image of the sea to last a little while longer; even though there was an Illusion Spell depicting the sea cast on the walls of the swimming pool of Stable Eight, this vision showed not a mere illusion but what the actual sea looked like. Or at least if my understanding of Cardinal Tale’s spell was correct.

Hopefully someday soon I would get a chance to see it for myself and compare how accurate the vision was.

“... and destroyed Raider Park, the biggest fortress of raiders…”

Now we stood on the roof of an old building, below us lying- GREAT CELESTIA! The area that stretched before us was HUGE!

Raider Park was an apt name. There were plenty of dead trees scattered in the large, rectangular space. The borders of Raider Park were walled, both collapsed and still standing pre-war buildings having been converted into massive fortifications.

The sheer size of this place was staggering. It was easily bigger than both Appleloosa and maybe Sanctuary combined! And it was completely under raiders’ control? How in the Goddesses’ names had the Stable Guardian managed to destroy it?

Or maybe the better question was, had he managed todestroy it? I frowned as I scanned the park below. That place looked rather intact for being “destroyed”. There were a lot of buildings, most clearly constructed after the war, made out of random pieces of wood, metal, and other trash, and some pre-war. They were naturally bigger, carved out of brick and stone, resembling castles. On their walls were mostly destroyed sculptures. An itch of irritation passed through me at the thought of raiders dwelling in such structures, but that didn’t upset me as much as the other sights below.

Skeletons.

Now, naturally, most of them were raiders in life. This was their stronghold, after all, and the Stable Guardian had apparently “destroyed” it. It made sense that many had died there (though why nopony had removed them and taken this place for their own was a mystery to me). But even from so far away, I could see skeletons impaled upon spikes. Bones in massive pits. Bones below hanging nooses.

Skeletons tied to what once must have been a carousel.

I could feel my ears drop as I turned my gaze to other playground attractions. And then further, towards a gloomy river, with a bird-shaped boat lying on the rocky shore. This was once a place for families to come with their foals, and the raiders had turned it into… this.

Shaking my sadness off, I was about to turn to Cardinal Tale to ask how exactly the Stable Guardian dealt with this place, but then she resumed, “... he braved the Island of Screams…”

Yes! More sea!

Once again we stood along the shoreline, this time amidst what appeared to be a harbor. There were piers with sunken or, um, beached I believe the term was, ships. I quickly turned my gaze from our immediate surroundings, glanced briefly on the island far off in the distance before gazing at the sea. I did notice though that this - I assumed - “Island of Screams” seemed to be not only further away from the shore than Friendship City but was also bigger, and there weren’t any visible structures on it besides one very tall tower right at its edge. Normally I would probably be intrigued by the building, but right now…

Oh, how I wished, gazing at the slowly moving waves, for the Storykeeper’s spell to be able to emit sounds. I could only imagine how beautiful that music would be!

Within a few moments, though, the vision had disappeared. While slightly disappointed, I turned to Cardinal Tale, curious about what else she would show us.

“... defeated the largest of the dragons that served the Raider Queen, Garble…”

“WHAT?”

It was a relief to hear at least Aite’s exclamation alongside my own; I didn’t particularly like the feeling of being the only person in the room not privy to such extraordinary information. However, all such trivial thoughts evaporated from my mind at the amazing sight that had been conjured before me.

“Is that a dragon’s skull?!” I exclaimed, gazing wide-eyed at the massive skull that loomed over us. It had to be, the sheer size, the number of teeth, and their shape… okay, maybe I didn’t know what was the appropriate size for a dragon’s skull or how many teeth they had or if they really had so many fangs, but-

“Wait, Misery had dragons serving her?” Aite’s question interrupted my momentary daze. When I glanced at her - very briefly, as I was busy taking quick measurements of the skull - the bat pony had turned to Jack. “How come you hadn’t mentioned that?”

“Because it wasn’t important to the story,” Jack replied calmly. Staring at the skull thoughtfully, he continued, “She only had a few under her control, and most of them were barely bigger than a pony. And the biggest one was killed a few months before her fall,” he added, waving his forepaw at the image of the skull.

“How in the Goddesses’ names did Misery control something so gigantic?” I asked, bewildered at the concept. No, the mere thought! “And how did the Stable Guardian kill this dragon?”

“You generally use explosives for something this big,” Jack retorted, shrugging.

My brow furrowed hearing the nonchalance at his voice. While it could be attributed to him already knowing many parts of the story we were being told, I couldn’t help but wonder if it came from him having some experience fighting dragons and other giant creatures.

Questions flared in my brain, both to Jack and Cardinal Tale. How big exactly had this dragon been? (I could make only an educated guess based on the skull’s size.) Exactly how many had Misery had under her control? How exactly had the Stable Guardian killed this Garble? Who was Garble before somehow becoming subjugated by the Raider Queen? Could the Storykeeper show more than just a skull? And those were only my top five questions at the moment!

The vision shifted.

I bit back an anguished cry as the skull disappeared. I needed to know more! But even as I was about to open my mouth and convey my desire in a more civilized manner, I felt Jack’s steely gaze upon me. I knew what it meant.

Calm down Angel, I told myself, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, this is the Mustangs’ history you are being told. You will be staying here for some time, you will surely have the opportunity to ask your questions and learn more without rudely interrupting the story… and without a griffin mercenary breathing down your neck.

“... and lastly, the most dangerous feat of his life…”

More dangerous than fighting a giant dragon and wiping out a huge fortress of raiders by himself?

“... he infiltrated Misery Palace.”

… Well, sneaking into the home of the mare that controlled said dragon and raiders might have been more dangerous. Definitely enough for me to open my eyes and look at the vision Cardinal Tale had conjured…

… except she hadn’t.

I frowned in confusion at the Storykeeper, who, instead of creating another illusion, appeared to be reaching with her magic to the small table, grabbing one of the few items on it.

“Unfortunately,” Cardinal Tale said, “that place was utterly destroyed. Or fortunately, I suppose. This spell allows me to project places and people I have seen, whether personally or through the visions cast by my predecessor, or even through memory orbs. However, it does not work with places or people I’ve only seen in pictures,” she added, levitating the object she had grabbed over to me.

It was a picture. Instinctively, I tried to take a hold of it with my magic, forgetting that I currently couldn’t use it. With an annoyed sigh, I focused on the picture itself.

Well, I had to admit, the Raider Queen had good taste. The picture - clearly taken before the war - showed a big structure, surrounded by walls that formed a rectangle. A tower marked each corner and the only entrance inside appeared to be a single ornate and fortified gate. Beyond the gate lay a bricked road leading to the round building in the precise center of the rectangle. From it to the walls around it were additional buildings, connected to the middle one, the shape reminding me of the remains of barracks I saw back at the Rock Farms, only made of bricks and much bigger. Each was identical except for the one on the opposite side of the middle from the gate, which was much wider than the others. The way those oblong buildings were arranged gave the entire structure a look resembling a star locked in a rectangle.

I can’t fault the Raider Queen for picking this place to be her palace, I mused, admiring the construction. It was really elegant and unique while at the same time it seems to have been very fortified. What purpose did it serve before the war, though? The architectural style appears to be from the early eighth century of the post-Celestia/Luna rift era, so long before the war…

During my musings, Cardinal Tale had moved the picture closer to Aite so she could get a better look at it. Now it was tilted from me at an angle that allowed me to see the back of the picture, and I realized there were some words scribbled there. Curious, I leaned over.

Fillydelphia Penitentiary

Penitentiary? This was… a prison? I wouldn’t have imagined a prison to be so elegant… Why would-

“So that’s what it looked like,” Jack remarked as he looked at the picture. Glancing at him I saw that his eyes were scanning the structure thoroughly. “Hm, I always imagined this place to be bigger, if the Raider Queen chose this as her residence over Raider Park. But I suppose it’s still pretty formidable, easy to defend…”

“It was not the walls or towers that kept Misery Palace safe,” Cardinal Tale retorted. “Rather, it was the Raider Queen herself, as I’m sure you will soon agree. But also it probably helped that the Fillydelphia Ruins at the time were inhabited almost solely by raiders,” she amended.

“As I’m sure you will soon agree”... I mentally repeated after her, intrigued. I wonder what exactly she could mean… What else is she going to tell us?

“But what’s the big deal about the Stable Guardian sneaking in there?” Aite chimed in. “Yeah, I get it, thousands of raiders and a scary pink unicorn, so obviously it takes some serious balls to go there. But compared to killing a freaking dragon and taking out that huge raider fortress?”

It was Jack who answered her. “Before the Stable Guardian, nobody - except for raiders - who’d entered Misery Palace ever left. Nobody,” he added pointedly, narrowing his eyes at the bat pony. “Nobody even wanted to get near it. It was the darkest, most vile place in the entire Wasteland. The pit of debauchery and suffering in every meaning of those words.”

“Precisely,” Cardinal Tale agreed. “The Stable Guardian took an enormous risk entering that dark place. Especially when you consider that within that year he had caused more losses to the Raider Queen than anypony ever had in the fifteen years of her reign. It’s terrifying to just think about what depraved tortures her sick mind would have come up with if she had caught him. But he faced the horrors of Misery Palace, and because of that he learned of the Raider Queen’s plans to attack Tenpony Tower.”

Once again her horn flared up, and a wave of magic spread from it. The room gave way to the Wasteland, an image of a very tall, mostly intact building amidst ruins like those in the vision of Friendship City, with a pair of monorail tracks running past the tower and through a station built into its side, many stories above the ground. So this is Tenpony Tower, I mused, my interest in the place I had heard so many times described as the bastion of civilization in the Equestrian Wasteland. It was certainly a far more imposing structure than Misery Palace or any of the buildings in the Raider Park. Aside from maybe one side, which was blackened and sagging, and clearly reinforced in the post-war era; could this be from the balefire bomb’s blast? The rest of the building was much more pleasant to look upon, with mostly intact glass windows and some floors featuring balconies that appeared to still be in recreational use. Massive steel walls surrounded the tower, and on the roof, there was a massive radio antenna.

“At that time, Tenpony Tower was about the only settlement fully free of the Raider Queen’s influence,” the Storykeeper continued. “Even the likes of Friendship City paid her a toll, and others had it much worse. Of course, while it was safe behind its walls, Tenpony Tower still suffered because of the raiders, with the merchants and anybody else traveling from and to it being harassed by the raiders. But it was still the only place the Raider Queen couldn’t just stroll over to and make demands, the only place where her shadow couldn’t reach. And the Stable Guardian discovered that that was about to change.

“Most ponies would fall into despair. The raiders held almost the entire Wasteland in their grasp, and their army was much bigger than the combined forces of anybody who would want to stand against them. If the Raider Queen wanted something, she had more than enough numbers to take it. And nobody knew this better than the one who had spent months fighting her. The Stable Guardian also knew that Tenpony Tower wasn’t just a settlement, or even the ‘last bastion of civilization’ as it is called. He knew that this building used to house the Ministry of Arcane Science’s Manehattan hub during the war.”

I’m sorry, what?!

Amazed and excited, I turned my gaze to the image of Tenpony Tower. This was the Ministry of Arcane Science hub? Dear Goddesses… Now I knew I had to go there someday, preferably soon, I was already imagining what magical secrets could be waiting to be found there; did they conduct research there? Experiment with spells and megaspells? What kind of recordings remained there?

“Having befriended some of the residents of Tenpony Tower,” continued Cardinal Tale. It took some effort for me to turn my attention back to her, “DJ Pon3 especially, the Stable Guardian knew that many of the Ministry’s secrets were still hidden within the tower, secrets that could never be allowed to fall into the raiders’ hooves, and least of all their queen’s. But with the Raider Queen’s mind set on conquering it, it seemed that it was only a matter of time for that to happen.

“Except, the Stable Guardian didn’t give up. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the Raider Queen’s plan to attack Tenpony Tower, the Stable Guardian saw a beacon. A beacon that could rally all the still free people of the Wasteland, giving them a chance to free the Wasteland from Misery. For he knew that in order to take Tenpony Tower, she would have to bring a big portion of her forces, meaning if they could defeat them, the raiders’ power would be broken in one battle.”

I knew of course from Jack that after the raider’s defeat the Raider Queen’s control over the Wasteland was broken, but I found myself amazed at the foresight and ingenuity of the Stable Guardian. To learn of such great danger and be able to turn it into a victory for everybody.

“And so he set out to gather allies. First, he contacted the friends he had made during the months he fought the raiders. With DJ Pon3’s help, he was able to convince the leaders of Tenpony Tower of the direness of their situation and to agree to his plan, giving him funds to hire Talon Companies.”

The vision shifted, and now it showed the Stable Guardian again, except now behind him was a unicorn stallion with obscured features. Was this supposed to be DJ Pon3?

“He then turned to John Bloodtalon, son of the leader of Bloodtalons.”

Son of the leader of Bloodtalons? I thought as the vision shifted. Now beside the Stable Guardian and DJ Pon3 stood a grizzled griffin, much older than Jack. Comparing him with the image of a pegasus that I knew had been at the time in his late teens, I wondered if he too was portrayed older than he should be. An eyepatch covered his right eye… and a strange, metallic armor covered his left forepaw and wing. Was he somehow wounded in his forepaw and wing and needed additional protection? I wondered. The rest of his armor resembled the set Jack wore.

And speaking of Jack...

The griffin mercenary was staring at John Bloodtalon intensely. However, his face didn’t bear the calculative frown it usually did rather, he seemed to be smiling. I wondered if this was the first time he was seeing him. If John had lived eighty years ago, even if he was younger than Cardinal Tale’s spell showed, then it was sadly very probable that he had passed away before Jack was born.

“So,” I chimed in, smiling gently at the griffin as I recalled what he had told me and Aite, “if the leader of Bloodtalons at the time was your great-great-grandfather, then John would be your-”

“Great-grandfather, yeah,” Jack interrupted, finishing my sentence. “He was about my age back when all of this went down.” He dropped his smile and turned to Cardinal Tale and Khan. “You said you can create images of people or their images you had seen. I’m guessing your predecessor had shown you him with this spell? But then that would mean he had met your tribe,” he said once the Storykeeper nodded. “How come I never heard of the Mustangs then? I was told by my elders about the Stable Guardian, but all they knew about what had happened to him after the Raider Queen was defeated was that he disappeared.”

“If you’ll let the Storykeeper finish, you will understand why that is,” Khan replied with a calm smile (which I suspected must have annoyed Jack). “But to answer your question, yes, Cardinal Tale’s predecessor met John Bloodtalon. So did I for that matter,” he added, looking at the image. “When the Bloodtalons decided to leave the Equestrian Wasteland and operate from the zebras’ land instead, my grandfather went to meet with your great-grandfather to wish him good fortune and say farewell. I was just a young colt, but he left a strong impression. I assume he’s no longer with us?” Khan asked, turning back to Jack.

“Um, yeah, he passed away some twenty years ago,” he answered, slightly uncomfortably.

“A mercenary passing away instead of getting shot to death?” Aite chimed in, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Wow, that’s rare.”

“I told you that I learned this story from my elders,” Jack reminded her. “Why are you surprised now?”

“‘Elder’ isn’t very specific, considering the average lifespan of a mercenary. I thought you meant guys in their forties.”

“I am happy to hear he lived such a long life and that it didn’t end in violence,” Khan spoke up, breaking their argument. “Though I am saddened that he died, of course, even if such a long time had passed.”

“Yeah, well, everybody has to go at some point,” Jack retorted, earning a scowl from me.

It’s fortunate that I am planning to make everybody immortal, otherwise granting him immortality might be seen as petty of me.

Pushing his remark out of my mind, I turned to Cardinal Tale. “Since Jack brought it up, there’s one more discrepancy regarding your spell to clear up, sweetie. How come you can show us what Misery looked like? Except for her facial features, I mean,” I amended.

Before answering, the other unicorn turned to Khan. “I don’t think it has ever taken me so long to finish this tale,” she remarked, prompting the pegasus to chuckle. “The raiders erected many statues of their queen across the Wasteland,” she said, turning back to me. “Practically every outpost of theirs had one, as well as most of the settlements that paid a toll to be left alone. After the Raider Queen was defeated and the raiders broke apart, almost all of those statues were destroyed, even those in Raider Park. Our tribe had stumbled upon one, however, that was mostly intact, and even was still covered in paint, except most of the Raider Queen’s head had broken off.”

“So the spell can work with statues but not with pictures?” Aite asked, tilting her head in confusion. As I was thinking this over while listening to Cardinal Tale, I opened my mouth to explain what I theorized, but the bat pony shrugged and added “Meh, seems legit.”

I rolled my eyes at the severe oversimplification, but since the Storykeeper had already pointed out how long it was taking her to finish the tale, I decided to not start this particular debate.

“If there are no more questions,” Cardinal Tale said with an amused smirk before clearing her throat. “Thanks to John Bloodtalon, the Stable Guardian was able to talk with the leader of the Bloodtalons, the most renowned mercenary group in the Wasteland, and convince him to accept the contract from Tenpony Tower to fight the Raider Queen. This encouraged other Talon Companies and lesser mercenary bands who began to follow suit. The Stable Guardian left reaching out to and organizing them to the Bloodtalons and the ponies of Tenpony Tower while he approached his other friend…”

With the wave of her horn, the vision shifted again. Now beside the Stable Guardian, the presumed DJ Pon3, and John Bloodtalon stood a pony straight out of pre-war posters. A big earth pony clad from hoof to head in massive steel armor, with big guns strapped to the pony’s sides.

This was a Steel Ranger.

“... though maybe calling him his friend is going a bit too far,” Cardinal Tale added with a soft chuckle. “Still, even if they never became close, the Stable Guardian had considered Star Paladin SteelHooves to be a reliable ally.”

Star Paladin… SteelHooves? I wasn’t sure if this was this pony’s whole name or if part of it was a title or a rank.

“He helped the Stable Guardian convince his Elder to join this coalition in defense of Tenpony Tower, and through him to convince the Elders of other Steel Ranger contingents. Together with the mercenaries, they began to make war plans, and while the Stable Guardian helped them out, he mainly focused on gathering more allies. For even though the Bloodtalons and the Steel Rangers were the two most powerful groups in the Wasteland after the raiders, they were still vastly outnumbered. However, that wasn’t the only reason why he sought others.

“Earlier, I said that the Stable Guardian had seen the upcoming battle as a banner behind which the free people of the Wasteland could rally to defeat Misery. But he also believed it could become so much more. The Stable Guardian hoped that it could lead to the unification of all the people living in this land, to the rebirth of Equestria. To the return of peace and harmony. To the end of raiders, the end of the Wasteland. And he knew that for that, all the people would need to take a part in the upcoming battle.

“In the Stable Guardian’s mind, the battle for Tenpony Tower was the battle between the Wasteland and Equestria.”

Jack had told me of this, briefly. How the Stable Guardian “preached” about making the Wasteland a better place.

Those brief few words could not give justice to what Cardinal Tale had just told us about the Stable Guardian’s mindset.

That pony was a true visionary.

“So he flew across the Wasteland, visiting every settlement, every tribe, all of the creatures that called this land home. He encouraged them to join in the fight, stressing the importance of this coming conflict, and speaking of the future. Many turned him down, some agreed, but all listened, and even if they wouldn’t take part in this war, hope had stirred in their hearts.

“And those who had agreed, which wasn’t a small number, converged on Tenpony Tower to aid in its defense. Between their coalition and the forces of the Raider Queen, nearly every species living in the Wasteland had its representatives in this conflict fighting for either one or both sides.

“But the Stable Guardian was still restless. He knew the Raider Queen’s power, he knew the size of her forces, he knew of her evil. Though he and his allies mustered an impressive force and had prepared several strategies for the coming battle, he knew that they could still lose. And above all, he knew that Equestria could not be reborn without a final ally.”

Final ally? I repeated in my head, confused by the tone shift in Cardinal Tale’s words.

“And so…”

Her horn flared, and the vision changed. The images of the Stable Guardian, DJ Pon3, John Bloodtalon, and Star Paladin SteelHooves disappeared.

“... he turned his gaze above.”

Now clouds loomed above us.

A snort came from Jack. “You’re joking obviously.”

“Yeah,” Aite unexpectedly spoke up. “I mean, glossing over how those plans of his obviously didn’t pan out, we’re supposed to believe that this clearly smart buck thought those feathered assholes would help? Um, no offense,” she added, glancing at Khan and Jack with slight embarrassment.

While Jack merely rolled his eyes, Khan chuckled warmly. “None taken, though I wish not all pegasi had to be scorned because of the decisions of a few. But I digress,” he added with a shrug and turned to the Storykeeper.

“Knowing that his friends and allies would try to discourage him, the Stable Guardian left to deal with the pegasi without telling them,” Cardinal Tale resumed. “As he ascended above the cloud cover, he felt as if he had gone back in time. Before his eyes was the world as it was before the war, cities and people unmarred by the horrors of the Wasteland below. His arrival in turn caused some small unrest, and the pegasi who saw him fly through the clouds gathered around him in interest. However, as the Stable Guardian expressed his desire to speak to their leaders, he was surrounded by an Enclave patrol who arrested him.”

Memories arose of my own encounter with an Enclave patrol, and what their captain had told Ditzy regarding crossing the cloud cover.

“Since he came to ask for their help, the Stable Guardian didn’t try to fight them and complied. He hoped that by showing he had no hostile intentions he would be allowed to talk with somepony in charge. Still, the war with the Raider Queen would start in a matter of days. It was fortunate then that Senator Rainer, member of the pegasus Low Council, had heard of the pegasus from below the clouds and took interest in him. He met him the same day in the detention cell.”

Low Council? I repeated in my mind, frowning. I guess they are the leaders of the pegasi, like the Stable Council in Stable Eleven… I hope this doesn’t mean they chose them similarly. But does that mean there is also… a High Council?

“The Stable Guardian spoke to him about the reason he came, about the war in the Wasteland and the threat the Raider Queen posed to everybody, including the pegasi. He pleaded with him to help. The Senator took his words seriously but told him that helping the Wasteland wouldn’t be his decision to make. He explained to him how their leadership worked, how the government was chosen by the citizens from the members of the Enclave through voting for the Senate, the Low Council, that created laws and policies, and the High Council that enforced those laws and policies.”

Immediately my mood soured as I got reminded of the democratic system I had encountered in Stable Eleven. The pegasi didn’t just choose their leadership the same way, somehow they found a way to make it even more convoluted!

“The Senator told him that the official policy of the government was to not interfere with the world below, and for that to change and the pegasi to commit any form of help the Senate would have to vote on this. And that in turn would require time. Time that the Stable Guardian didn’t have. However, he refused to return below the clouds without at least trying to. He asked the Senator to allow him to speak before their Senate, believing that if they heard it from him they could be moved to action. Although Rainer was skeptical, he admitted that the youth was passionate and convincing, and his cause was just. He used whatever influence he had to call an emergency session of the Senate and arranged for the Stable Guardian to speak before them.”

Cardinal Tale released her spell. I looked up as the illusion of clouds disappeared; I had been a little disappointed that it was all the Storykeeper had shown us. I would have loved to see the sights the Stable Guardian had seen, the world unmarred by the Wasteland. But of course I understood that with the spell requiring the caster to have seen whatever they wanted to show themselves it would have been impossible.

But why had Cardinal Tale released the spell now? She had continued to channel it through her tale of what happened to the Stable Guardian above the cloud barrier. I looked at her questioningly, and saw that the other unicorn had once again turned to the table where earlier she took the picture of Fillydelphia Penitentiary from. Now she lifted another object with her magic.

A holotape.

“Doctor Angel, would you be so kind?” Cardinal Tale asked as she levitated the holotape over to me, looking meaningfully at my PipBuck.

“Oh, of course,” I stammered a little, lifting my leg.

“What is that?” Jack asked as I worked to connect the holotape to my PipBuck, a task I found unexpectedly difficult without the aid of my magic.

“A recording of the Stable Guardian’s address to the pegasi’s Senate,” Cardinal Tale replied. “As well as their reply.”

The griffin snorted. “Gee, I wonder what they said.”

“Our founder recorded it all for reasons explained in it,” Cardinal Tale continued, ignoring the remark. “Even though things didn't turn out how he had hoped, our tribe holds great value in this relic.”

Of course you do, it’s a recording of the voice of your tribe’s founder, I thought as I finally connected the holotape. Without my magic, I was then left impatiently fumbling at the PipBuck's controls with a hoof as curiosity gnawed at me. How did his voice sound? And what had he told the pegasi’s leaders? Oh, this is so exciting!

I hit play.

Distant whispers emerged from my PipBuck along with a series of weird… short, shuffling-like noises. Was this… what hoofsteps on top of clouds sounded like? I couldn’t tell, and soon they had stopped and were followed by a pony taking a deep breath.

“Thank you, Speaker.”

This was his voice? If the Stable Guardian had left Stable Thirteen when he was sixteen and he’d fought against the raiders for about a year up to this point, then he couldn’t have been more than about seventeen years old when this recording was made. While his voice definitely was pleasant and strong, there was no trace of nervousness or hesitation in it. It was resonating with confidence… as well as something else that I couldn’t quite put my hoof on.

“Thank you all for allowing me to speak here in the Senate. I thank members of the High Council for being here to listen as well. And I thank Senator Rainer for his endorsement that made it possible for me to speak here today. As you all know, despite being a pegasus like everypony here I came from below the clouds. I have been told that I am the first pony not born among you to speak here since the war. Certainly, a lot of things have happened both below and above the clouds within those past one hundred and twenty years, and this short hearing wouldn’t allow me to inform you of everything that has transpired on the ground even if I was able to. But I trust by the time I have finished you will understand what dread tidings bid me come here and speak before you.

“What remains of Equestria below the clouds is called ‘the Equestrian Wasteland’, or just ‘the Wasteland’ for short. However, I wasn’t born there. As you might have guessed by my barding and the PipBuck on my foreleg, I was born in one of the Stables below, to an earth pony father and a unicorn mother. There were no pegasi in the history of my Stable living there. Most would say that this is a genetic accident, some would say that it was the Goddesses' will that I was born a pegasus. My own faith has been… shaken by everything I have seen, but I know if there was some higher purpose behind me being born with these wings, it was to be here today.

“Regardless, I have brought up my upbringing so that you would understand; before about a year ago, the Wasteland had been about as alien to me as it is to you. Moreso, I would say. I had been sent out of my Stable to search for a water talisman as ours began to fail. I did not know what to expect, what was left of our country after the war. All I knew of Equestria came from stories told in my Stable… and between them and what I’ve seen up here, where your cities remain virtually unchanged from those days, it is plain just how much harm has been done to our ground-bound brethren. By the zebras, by themselves, and by you.

A murmur of disapproval could be heard in the recording.

“Please. I did not mean my words as an accusation. I do not judge your ancestors for closing the skies a century ago. They did what they deemed best for the survival of everypony who lived above the clouds. I wasn’t there. Chances are I would have made the same choices they made. But I brought it up because you need to understand what it meant for everybody not so fortunate to be born with wings.

“The land below is barren. Almost nothing grows in the dim light that manages to break through the cloud barrier. Ponies were reduced to eating meat or scavenging pre-war canned goods in order to survive. Water is easier to find, but not clean water. That became more precious than gold was before the war. Most sources of water have become polluted and poison ponies who drink from them. Hunger and thirst are as common a foe as radiation, the magical fallout left by the balefire that scoured our country. Lakes and rivers become irradiated, further poisoning the land. But the radiation doesn’t just kill. Sometimes it mutates ponies and other creatures. Many of the animals that once lived in Equestria have mutated into dangerous monsters that prey on ponies. And even worse, if you can possibly imagine it, is Taint, a mysterious, highly malignant poison that cannot be detected, leaving ponies with the experience of its unfortunate victims as the only defense against encountering it.

“Survival in the Wasteland… is harsh. At times, it even feels as if it has a will of its own. A malicious, evil will, that seeks to infect everything, be it living or not, and twist it into dark mockeries of what they once were.

“That is why many of the ponies living there became raiders. That is what those who turned to crime and violence are called. The Wasteland poisons and twists them until they lose their morality and descend into evil. Some were just bandits that stole in order to survive. Many became murderers who did not care who they killed. And many others became sadistic creatures, worse than radiation-created monsters, and yes, by that I mean that they even eat other ponies. The raiders prey on everypony else, ponies who just focus on surviving and living their lives in peace in their settlements, as much as it is possible in the harshness of the Wasteland.

“However, for an entire century, those ponies had managed. The raiders were a vicious menace, but settlements had still managed to survive and even thrive, as much as it is possible to down there. All those bandits and murderers weren’t organized, each gang looking only after themselves, and usually were preying only on travelers and the smallest of towns. But, that all changed about a decade and half ago, when… when Misery came.”

My eyes widened at the venom the Stable Guardian had poured into that single word. As if he loathed her very name. Knowing that she had killed his friends and lover, it wasn’t a shocking realization, but the brief change in his voice had still surprised me.

“That’s the name of a unicorn mare who gained control of one of those raider groups fifteen years ago. Then, within a few short years, she systematically united every other gang in the Wasteland, becoming the Raider Queen. Under her command, the raiders became the dominant force below the clouds. Settlements were attacked, ponies killed or enslaved, and survivors were forced to pay a tribute regularly, be it food, weapons, or new slaves. Nearly every town in the Wasteland effectively came under the Raider Queen’s thrall. There had been times when the Raider Queen would just stroll into a settlement and have everypony there obey her every whim. Which fortunately has been rare as of late, as for the last decade she hardly left the palace she had fashioned for herself from a pre-war prison.”

I frowned hearing the familiar ruffling noises in between the Stable Guardian’s words. It was the sound Jack’s and Khan’s wings would make while they flew in the air.

“From there she rules over her thousands of raiders, sitting upon a throne THIS high, made entirely out of ponies’ skulls!”

Faint gasps could be heard from my PipBuck as the gathered pegasus senators voiced their shock. While undoubtedly the mere concept of a throne made of skulls was rather… grisly, I couldn’t help but wonder…

How far above the floor had the Stable Guardian flown?

“You might be wondering,” he continued, after a few seconds, as the senators quieted down and he probably landed back on his stand, “how was it possible for this mare to effectively become the ruler of the Wasteland? Surely, if life is so hard below the clouds, if survival is a never-ending battle, ponies and other creatures must know how to fight back? You are right. And they tried fighting back the Raider Queen, just as they had fought back the raiders through that century. You already heard what became of simple settlements, but it wasn’t just them. Talons, the griffin mercenary companies, fought against her, often being paid to do so. Many were eradicated, with some of their former members even ending up as raiders themselves. And the Steel Rangers, descendants of the armed forces of the Equestrian Ministry of Wartime Technologies, clad in power armor like your own soldiers, fought against her. They have been crushed time after time. Now they still resist the raiders, but have standing orders to literally run away if they spot the Raider Queen.

“They do so because she. Is. Powerful. I do not know what your records say about magical abilities of unicorns from before the war, but I assure you, none of them could compare to her. I had heard reports and tales of the Raider Queen crushing Steel Rangers within their power armor, of dampening an explosion of a grenade completely, and of her catching a missile from a rocket launcher and turning it back! I would have thought of those as mere tales, if it weren’t for things I have seen myself. And what I have seen…

“I’m sorry,” he said after a brief pause and a deep breath. “I saw her crush the heads of my friends like it was nothing.”

What?

“I saw her drop a building on top of a single pony. She didn’t need to, she could have killed her in an easier way. But she did that because to her that was easy.”

But that… that was insane! Building aside, for which I couldn’t calculate the energy necessary to move because the Stable Guardian hadn’t specified how big it was anyway, but crushing a pony’s head… Crushing! Not blow away, destroy, cut, burn, but crush! Implying she used a simple Telekinesis Spell’s grip! The amount of force required to crush a… the amount of magical energy required…

Not even Demon was this powerful.

Suddenly the part of Jack’s tale about the Raider Queen holding up a collapsed building with her magic to let her and part of her army escape didn’t seem too improbable. Neither did those tales the Stable Guardian had brought up.

“But her magical power is not what makes her so dangerous.”

Merciful Luna, I had never thought I would be relieved to know a pony was dead, what now?!

“If that was all there was to her, she wouldn’t hold the entire Wasteland under her hoof. She would be nothing more than an extremely dangerous raider unicorn. She wouldn’t be able to control thousands of raiders. All those violent, derranged murderers among them would have usurped her a long time ago. No, what keeps all of them in line, what keeps the entire Wasteland in fear, is her sick, unimaginable cruelty.

“I interrogated many, many raiders over the past couple of months. Each of them, and I mean each and every one with no exception, when we would reach topics that they believed the Raider Queen would be ‘upset’ if they’d talk about, they’d refuse to speak. Instead, they would laugh at me for trying to intimidate them, and spout tales of what she would do to them. Tales that I, even after everything I had seen in the Wasteland, everything done in her name, even after seeing firsthoof what she was capable off, did not believe.

“Until last month, when I infiltrated her palace.

“Now I doubt you will believe me, for one cannot fathom how a pony, or any living, sapient being could devise such atrocities. But I will tell you some of the horrors I have witnessed there nonetheless, for this is what I came here to do, try and make you comprehend what has transpired beneath the clouds.”

I felt a shiver go down my spine. The horror was plain in the Stable Guardian’s voice. Jack had called Misery Palace “the pit of debauchery and suffering in every meaning of those words”. If it truly caused sheer terror in somepony who had spend months in the Wasteland fighting her raiders, then it must have been an apt description.

“There was a doctor named Red Blood, who one day was enslaved by the raiders. Nevertheless, he continued to heal ponies, treating his masters with the same care he had offered his patients. Word of his healing abilities reached the Raider Queen, and she had decided she wanted him among the doctors serving her in her palace. His continued obedience eventually granted him the dubious privilege of becoming her personal medic. And that was when he tried to assassinate the Raider Queen.

“He failed, obviously. The Raider Queen entombed him within one of the chambers in her palace. He was melded into the wall, making any sort of movement impossible save for his jaw, for the Raider Queen allowed him to voice his suffering. She let him retain his eyes and ears, for she wanted him to see and hear. When he was stuck into the wall, most of the coat and skin on his chest, belly and legs remained exposed, because she wanted him to feel. For months at a time, he would be left alone, seeing, hearing, and feeling only darkness, silence, and nothing beside the pain. But then it would change, and for days or even weeks, orgies and other debauchery would take place in this room, making him see, hear, and feel acts that would awaken dark desires in any lonely heart, which he would never partake in again, before he would be left alone again. But that wasn’t all the Raider Queen had done to him. To seal his fate she had his organs cut out and splayed along the walls, mixed with cement among the bricks, so he would see them and know he was this room now. Lastly, she hooked him up to life-supporting machines, ensuring he would remain alive as long as it was medically possible. And he was, for eight years, until last month, when I reprogrammed those machines to pump an overdose of morphine and granted him the death he begged for. Red Blood had told me his story himself.

My tail swished behind me. That was… certainly horrible.

Wouldn’t I have done something similar though?

No, though I could understand that such a betrayal could have hurt and angered Misery, this felt like… an overreaction…

Did this really seem that much different from how I would punish my test subjects?

Angrily, I tried harder to push those thoughts away. It helped that I could focus on the recording.

“Eleven years ago, there was a mercenary company called Hilda’s Talons. They were hired to defend a settlement against the raiders. They defeated the raiders that came to extract a toll from them, and then another attack. Wave after wave of storms came and the Talons still defended the town. Finally, they inflicted the raiders with such losses that the Raider Queen turned her attention to them. She came personally with another force, much bigger than anything they had earlier thrown at the town… and, at the price of many raiders dying, she captured every single one of the Talons alive.

“There were twelve of Hilda’s Talons left by that time. Four of them, the Raider Queen made into raiders. Three males she forced to become part of her harem to please her sexually. Four females she gave to her raiders as slaves to do with as they pleased, with the exception of killing them. But the worst fate awaited their leader, Hilda.

“She tortured her, relentlessly, for months, slowly breaking her mind, day by day, until there was nothing left of the griffin she was. She had been reduced into nothing more than an animal. To this day, she lies beneath the Raider Queen’s hooves when she sits upon her throne like an obedient pet. She lets her pet her on the head, licks her on the hoof, and obeys every command, be it to attack somepony or to let her raiders mount her for her amusement. She no longer remembers who she was, and does not wish to leave the Raider Queen’s palace. I know because I tried talking with her, I begged her to leave with me, but to no avail.

My eyes grew wider and wider as I listened to what became of this Hilda. This… this was evil. Torturing her to the point she lost everything that made her her… I couldn’t imagine doing something more terrible to a person. And what became of her Talons, slaves, raiders, lovers of the one who had caused all of this… If this had been the price of defying the Raider Queen, what fate would have awaited the Stable Guardian if she had captured him?

“But probably the worst fate was that of Wild Carrot, mayor of Reno, and his daughter Bunny.Reno was a town inside a mall and counted a little over fifty citizens. Thirteen years ago, the Raider Queen had sent to his town, like many others, an offer to leave them alone if they paid her a regular tribute. Mayor Wild Carrot had replied that he had no intention of paying the, and I quote, ‘Princess Celestia of cock-wrangling’ a broken cap.”

I stared agape at my PipBuck as several faint snickers followed the Stable Guardian’s words… along with a few not-so-faint snickers from a griffin and a bat pony beside me. I shot both angry looks, but before I could chastise them the tale continued.

“The Raider Queen hadn’t appreciated the insult. Within days, she let loose an army of raiders upon Reno, capturing most of the settlers alive. Then, before the eyes of Wild Carrot, she slaughtered every single one of them, one by one, until only he and his daughter remained alive.

“Then, the Raider Queen gave him a choice.

“He could either watch his daughter be raped by every single raider buck around them… or have sex with her himself, right there and then, in front of all of them.”

… what the f-

“She then continued that they would spend the rest of their lives as her ‘pets’, they would not be harmed and have everything they wished for, provided they have sex every day in front of her raiders. Wild Carrot didn’t really have much choice and picked the latter. I’ve been told that, after the incestuous act was done, the Raider Queen was in such high spirit, that she gave them a chance to regain their freedom. She told Wild Carrot that if he bred his daughter, and produced enough offspring to repopulate the town, she would free them all, return them to Reno and leave them alone.

“Today, they and their nine foals are still part of Misery’s ‘menagerie’, locked within a cage made out of ballistic glass, with Wild Carrot intending to breed their daughters once they reach reproductive age so they can be eventually free of their nightmare.”

Merciful Goddess… this was sick. Just… sick! Why- How does one come up with something so disgusting?! If this was what being ‘insane’ meant?! If so, I sincerely failed to see how others could call me such! I experiment on ponies and would never even consider such depravity!

I wasn’t the only one utterly disgusted. Aite beside me was retching. Or at least pretending to.

“Not that it’s the only ‘breeding’ going on in that cursed place. Sure, there’s an orgy happening at all times somewhere, and Goddesses know what sort of debaucheries take place behind the closed doors of the Raider Queen’s private quarters, but in the dungeons of her prison… The things, the monstrous creatures bred there, the living horrors I pray shall never see the dim light of the Wasteland or taste the air, blasphemes of life created for nothing more than sick curiosity!”

Okay, now that at least was interesting. What kind of “creatures” could he possibly have meant?! Couldn’t he go into details about what Misery had done with them instead of that poor parent and child (even if one had uttered an extremely blasphemous profanity)?

“Those are only a few of the many, many, acts of cruelty the Raider Queen has committed. But… her cruelty, even though it defies any sense, logic or imagination, isn’t what’s the worst about her.”

Isn’t the wors- was that stallion jesting?! What could possibly be worse than… all of that?!

“It is her ability… to draw out evil in others.”

… I’m sorry, what?

“You might have noticed that earlier when I talked about what she had done to the Talons, I hadn’t said: ‘four of them, she had forced to join her raiders’, or ‘four of them, she had made part of her armies’. No, I said ‘four of them, the Raider Queen made into raiders’. And they were far from the only ones. Other Talons, sheriffs, mayors, Steel Rangers, all good people, were subjected to the same fate. Through torture, seduction, manipulation, and through her favorite, arranging scenarios that make others descend into the darkest part of their nature, Misery draws out the evil in them, transforming them into raiders.”

That’s… interesting. I hadn’t earlier when he spoke of those Talons caught on to what he had meant, but now I understood. She made them into raiders and had done so to many others, apparently. I thought back to Thorny Locust; I had tried asking her what made her become a raider, though unfortunately, she had refused to give me an answer other than she liked to kill ponies (and commit some other equally appalling acts). But certainly, she and other raiders must have had reasons for becoming like that. Something that caused them to lose their morality.

And apparently, the Raider Queen, ruler of all raiders, had known her subjects well enough to understand those reasons. A knowledge she used to arrange that exact transformation in others, too.

Did she use some spell to accomplish that? There were spells that could grant control over others, the Mind Control Talisman in my lab coat’s inner pocket being proof of that. Even if this seemed different, as it was not so much “mind control” as… corruption, it was hard to imagine accomplishing something like this without the use of magic.

But the way the Stable Guardian spoke of it…

“Earlier… I spoke about the Wasteland having its own will. That with how much everything tries to break ponies below the clouds, it feels as if there was some design behind it. Some dark will intent on reducing ponies into nothing more than evil savages. If that was true… then Misery had long since embedded herself into it and made that will her own. You would be hard-pressed to find some evil transpiring below the clouds that doesn’t have its origin in her. Her control over the Wasteland is vast and she seems intent on not just using the power this gives her on satisfying her needs, but on spreading evil into others until the entire world becomes just like her.

“Now, as I stand here before you, she musters her forces for the attack on the last bastion of freedom in the Wasteland, the last settlement that is truly free of her control. Tenpony Tower. The Raider Queen is determined to finally crush it under her hoof, and I dare not think what fate she has in store for those who call it home. Ever since I discovered her plans, I have been working tirelessly to save them, gathering forces among all the free people of the Wasteland. We have come together and we are preparing our defenses as we wait for the raiders. With our combined forces and our plans, we can win against the Raider Queen… but if we don’t, then doom awaits the entire Wasteland.

“This is why I came before you. To ask, to beg, in the name of earth ponies and unicorns, in the name of griffins, zebras, hellhounds, and any creature living below the clouds, please, help us! The Enclave possesses greater might at its disposal than the entire Wasteland combined! With your help, our victory against the Raider Queen’s reign of terror would be assured! Please, help us end our suffering, our misery!

“...

“I realize what I am asking of you,” the Stable Guardian continued in a calmer tone after that passionate bout. I could still feel my heart racing. “I do. I am asking you to commit to war, a war that doesn’t concern you, and a war that you would have nothing to gain from. Well, I tell you now, it does concern you. Because if the Wasteland falls under Raider Queen’s evil, then one day, maybe ten years, maybe twenty, but one day, at last, she will come for you.

“You think yourself safe from her and the rest of the Wasteland atop your clouds. I tell you now, you are not. Eventually, the Raider Queen will come for you. Not because she wishes to control everypony and rule over the whole world, but because in her broken mind, nobody is allowed to live a happy life, except for the brainwashed males in her harem and fanatical mares in her Queen’s Guard. Once she subjugates the Wasteland, she will turn her gaze upon you. And whether she uncovers the secrets of the megaspells, finds some abandoned weaponry from the war, or will just plainly crushes the S.P.P. towers one by one, she will come for you.

“And… even if we win, if we defeat the Raider Queen, none of us, whether living below or above the clouds, would be safe for long. It might take another century, but eventually, the Wasteland will give birth to another ‘Misery’, another soul overcome with evil bent on spreading suffering. It is inevitable. The only way to prevent that, to end this cycle of hatred, is to end the Wasteland itself.

End the Wasteland? I mentally repeated, intrigued.

“You may scoff if you want. Certainly, almost all those who live below the clouds scoffed when I told them of my vision. Because how could we ever end the Wasteland? How could we return this irradiated, barren land to the glorious kingdom we all once shared? I do not hold all the answers to that question, I do not know how to get rid of the radiation or Taint. But I do know the most important step we all must take for the Wasteland to be healed. We need to all come together.

“All the settlements, all the free people, and you, who have lived carefree lives. Ponies were meant to live together in Equestria, the pegasi side by side with unicorns and earth ponies. By separating yourselves from them you have suffered as well. Sure, your lives are far better than those who were doomed to living in the Wasteland, but even in the brief time I have spent among you, I could see it. Shortages of food, resources, population control, lack of production… all those problems could be solved if you would open up the skies and connect with our earth-bound brothers and sisters.

“So I ask you again, beg you, in the name of earth ponies and unicorns, for all people who called Equestria home and lived with us in harmony, please, help us! Help us destroy the evil that threatens us all. Help us bring back peace and harmony! Fight with us against the Raider Queen, and tear down the cloud barrier! Help us save Equestria!”

I hoped the Stable Guardian hadn’t expected ovations after bringing his long and passionate speech to the end. I had. And I could only imagine how crestfallen he felt when instead of applause and promises of support he heard the murmuring of the senators, that had started earlier when he brought up rejoining ponies below the clouds, growing louder. If he had, he hadn’t let it be known through the recording, as after his speech all we could hear were the voices of the other pegasi and the earlier noises that I had speculated were hoofsteps on the clouds.

“Thank you very much for your speech, Mister- order!” a different voice - possibly the ‘Speaker’ that the Stable Guardian had thanked at the beginning - called out as the murmurs from the other senators grew louder. “Order! Thank you for your speech. Now, if you could leave the Senate Chamber, we can move on to the next part of the proceedings. You will be summoned once we’ve reached a decision.”

“Sir? If you could follow us,” a different pony spoke up.

Several more hoofsteps later, I heard an odd clicking sound, and the noises from the senators had died down. The Stable Guardian and whoever was escorting him out must have left the Senate Chamber.

“How long do you think they’ll take?” the Stable Guardian asked after a few silent seconds had passed.

The other pegasus remained silent, as if wondering about that himself (or if he should reply at all). “Hard to say,” I finally heard him say. “Normal sessions can take most of the day before they finally start voting on the matter. However, since this is an emergency session, they might vote as soon as they formulate a formal legislative proposal.”

The Stable Guardian let out a long sigh. “Anypony ever told you that your leadership’s decision making process is overcomplicated and convoluted?”

“Well,” a different voice, a younger one (than the other pegasus, not the Stable Guardian) began, “we’re not a small village of savages to make such big decisions on the fly. Besides, I don’t get why you would complain; if you can prepare such amazing speeches you’d fit right in with the senators! Seriously, how long did you work on that?”

“Hm? Oh, I didn’t prepare that speech, I came up with that whole thing on the spot.”

WHAT?!

“WHAT!?” both guard ponies exclaimed in unison, the recording echoing my thoughts. The younger one added, “You’re expecting us to believe you improvised that whole, long-ass passionate speech?”

“No offense fellows, but I don’t particularly care if you believe me or not. But yeah, I did improvise the whole thing.” Chuckling, he added, “I suppose you could call it my ‘Great Improvisation'.”

“Why the hell hadn’t you prepared what you were going to say to them?” the older pegasus asked. “I mean, it clearly worked out for you, that was the best speech I've heard in that damned chamber in years, but considering what you came to ask I’d think you’d have come with the speech ready in your head.”

The Stable Guardian snorted. “Yeah, I thought about it. But… Considering what I came here to ask, I thought that it wouldn’t be right towards you to come recite a prepared speech, however well made. It might seem silly, but the thought of coming with a ready and rehearsed speech sort of… makes me feel as if I would have cheated you, even though I would still speak the truth. I mean… I wanted to reach to your hearts, and for that I needed to speak from my heart, about the Wasteland, about Equestria… and her,” he added, his voice bitter. Sighing, he continued, “had I prepared this speech, then when I’d have talked about the Raider Queen and the things I saw my voice might not have conveyed the pain she had caused.”

Well, I suppose he had made a valid point. His speech had been truly moving because of the emotions he had poured into it. I wondered how much practice he must have had… he had convinced the entire free Wasteland to join the fight against the Raider Queen, so probably a lot…

“Geez, you must really hate that Misery, huh?” the younger pegasus ventured.

“... hatred breeds misery…”

“What was that?” he asked in confusion, probably not having understood what the Stable Guardian had muttered under his breath.

“Nothing, just… something somepony told me once,” the Stable Guardian explained. Uttering a long sigh, he continued, “I despise her. She has caused so much pain in the Wasteland. I should hate her. But… Can I hate her?”

Glancing at Jack and Aite, I saw that they were equally confused as I was.

“I’m fighting her not because I want revenge for what she has done, but to stop her. To bring peace to the Wasteland, to save Equestria. But can I do so with hatred in my heart? Or am I just falling into her trap?”

“... how is trying to defeat her ‘falling into her trap’, exactly? Wait, do you mean that she knows you’re gathering forces and plans to wipe them all out in one strike? That’s why you came to the Enclave for help!”

“No. That’s not what I meant. What I fear is not that she wants to crush everybody who opposes her, but that she wants to crush me.”

“Wow, with that ego you could definitely become a politician buddy.”

“You don’t know her,” the Stable Guardian continued, ignoring the joke. “You don’t know the lengths she would go to to bring forth evil in another pony’s heart. What if… what if all of that had been to just turn me into a raider? What if she hopes that by hating her and her raiders, when I kill them I slowly turn into… You seem about the same age as me,” he suddenly changed his tone, probably turning to the younger of the two pegasi guards. “Tell me, have you killed somepony yet?”

“Um, no, but-” the pegasus began, clearly abashed, but the Stable Guardian interrupted him.

“Well I have. I killed… Goddesses, how many there have been? The Raider Park supposedly had two hundred raiders staying there at all times-”

Great Godde-

“- so… somewhere between three to four hundred? Maybe more?”

… Merciful Goddesses…

“I’ve killed so many… does it matter that they were raiders? That they were a bunch of murderers, rapists, and… whole other things? Does it make me any less of a mass murderer? If I had killed them with hate in my heart, does it make me that much different from them?

All three ponies in the recording fell silent for a few heartbeats. I was sure the two guards probably had no idea what to say to the Stable Guardian’s confession and the question he had been apparently struggling with. I had no idea what I would say. Even though those were raiders, he was clearly haunted by all the death he had caused. Three to four hundred, Merciful Luna… he was only seventeen years old! I was older when I… Those four test subjects that died in Stable Eight had certainly deserved it and it had still upset me, but the Stable Guardian…

“So no, actually,” the Stable Guardian resumed. “I don’t hate the Raider Queen. At least… I hope not. Because if I do hate her, if I hate the raiders, if I just keep killing… then even if she dies, she will win.”

“... I… think you might be…” the older pegasus began hesitantly, then changed his approach. “Son, up here we have ponies soldiers can talk to after going through traumatic events. Perhaps after all this is over you should-”

The Stable Guardian uttered a short laugh, interrupting him. “Yeah, believe it or not we actually have a few below the clouds as well. Ah… pay no heed to what I said. It’s just ramblings of a pony weary of the world.”

“That thing on your leg,” the younger pegasus interjected, possibly wanting to change the subject, “that’s a PipBuck right? Why do you keep glancing at it?”

“Oh, just checking if it’s still recording.”

“Recording?!” the two pegasi guards exclaimed in unison again. The older one then added, “You can't record the Low Council sessions!”

“Yeah, I figured,” the Stable Guardian replied, awfully nonchalant considering he had admitted to breaking their law while asking for their help. “But it’s necessary.”

“Neces- oh, I’m going to enjoy hearing this one…” the elder guard remarked sarcastically.

“... Do you have any idea how much you are hated below the clouds?” the Stable Guardian replied, his voice losing any trace of the good humor that had returned to it briefly. “How many curse you for ignoring them for over a hundred years? Do you have any idea what your ancestors did when they closed the sky?”

“That’s not- it’s not that simple.”

“I understand,” the Stable Guardian said quickly, forestalling an argument. “I really do. But many ponies don’t, or don’t know why you actually abandoned them, and many simply don’t care about your explanations.

“I came here to try and unite the sky and land again. But I worry how ponies below will react when the Enclave suddenly descends upon them; even if they see you fighting the raiders, they could think of you as a new enemy seeking to conquer them.

“Which is why I came up with the idea to record what will be said today. To then broadcast across the Wasteland my plea for help, and the Enclave reply ‘Yes, we will help you! Yes, we will restore Equestria together!’ I believe that when they hear this, me, a pegasus many know and trust, and the Enclave leadership assuring me of their help, they will find it easier to believe that you truly came to our aid.”

The Stable Guardian hadn’t ceased to amaze me. To think that far ahead, to take into consideration the attitude of ponies of the Wasteland towards the Enclave, even as his mind had to be occupied with the Raider Queen… even though I knew he had failed to get their help, I couldn’t help admire how far ahead he’d thought and how prepared he was.

“I… suppose we can’t fault you for making this recording then… and that we don’t have to report this… right?”

“Um, of course, sir,” the younger guard agreed. “But… Why are you recording everything? Don’t you just need to record the senators agreeing to help?”

“Oh, yeah, but, I didn’t know at what point they would say it. I hoped they might right after my speech and didn’t want to miss it. I’ll just have my friend edit the recording before broadcasting it, no need to play all of it to the ponies of the Wasteland.”

“Especially the part about the stuff that Raider Queen is into, I would imagi-”

A strange buzzing noise interrupted the guard.

“Looks like they finished debating and voted. Come on.”

“Finally,” the Stable Guardian groaned, oblivious to what answer awaited him.

Beside me I heard Jack hiss a curse under his breath. I felt like doing the same; the Stable Guardian had been so hopeful…

“That was rather quick, wasn’t it?” I heard the younger of the two guards ask in a hushed tone.

“Well it is an emergency session,” the older guard responded; if he had his doubts about what was about to happen, he hid it well from his voice, “and they heard that this battle he spoke of is happening in just a few days.”

As we listened to them walk back into the Senate Chamber, I glanced at Khan and Cardinal Tale. What exactly was the point of listening to the rest of the recording? Everypony, myself included, knew what the senators’ answers must have been.

It happened as I predicted. Not long after the Stable Guardian took his seat, the Speaker announced the result of the vote. The huge majority of the Senate, with only a few senators voting against or withholding their voice, voted in favor… of not taking part in the conflict below the clouds, then in the second voting they similarly voted to continue the separation from the surface and sustain the cloud barrier.

“Now we- hey, where are you going, Mr-” the Speaker suddenly exclaimed, but was quickly interrupted by a much stronger voice.

“I wish you good fortune in the years to come.”

I blinked, surprised. Within the span of maybe a minute, the Stable Guardian had learned that his entire journey was pointless, that his hope for reuniting ponykind had been crushed… but there was no anger in his voice. No resignation. Of the emotions I had expected to hear, I could detect only sadness in his voice. But even so… his words seemed genuine.

“I have a Wasteland to save,” he added, dismissively.

I expected the recording to end there, but to my surprise it continued.

“Wait!” I heard a distant voice call out.

“Senator Rainer, please take your-”

“Oh, hush!” the senator who had helped the Stable Guardian snorted, now sounding much closer. “Son, this doesn’t mean it’s over,” he said, now speaking to the Stable Guardian. “Give me a few days, a week, I can gather the senators who voted against us, we can set up a committee-”

“I don’t have ‘a few days’, Senator Rainer,” he replied firmly, though not impolitely. “The battle will take place any day now. I need to return to my allies. If we lose, what you decide will not matter, for it will be too late. And if we win, you won’t help us end the Wasteland. I can see it now clearly, even though I couldn’t before. You won’t come below the clouds until it will be too late for all of us.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“If we defeat the Raider Queen without your help, eventually another Misery shall rise in her place,” he said, his voice like a rumbling thunder and brimming with power. “They will become such a grave threat that even the Enclave will fear them. When that day comes, you will descend upon the Wasteland. But beware! For if you do, then you shall do so with fire and death alone, and not with aid to the innocent; in response, a spark shall ignite the Wasteland against you. Rainbows shall split the sky, and sunshine will illuminate you for all to see what you truly are, and your own people shall turn away from you.”

The recording ended, but I still continued to stare at my PipBuck. There was such power, such… conviction in the Stable Guardian’s voice when he had replied to Senator Rainer that even though the recording had finished I couldn’t quite turn myself away.

I wasn’t the only one affected by the Stable Guardian’s words, as Jack and Aite also remained silent for several more moments. I couldn’t even hear them move, only breathing. Finally, the bat pony was first to break free. “Well… that was a… a dramatic way to end that,” she said, struggling to find words. She shook herself and turned to Jack. “But damn, that Enclave, huh?”

“Bunch of cunts,” Jack grunted in agreement, then snorted. “I honestly don’t know how he could expect anything more from them.”

“My grandfather was an optimist,” Khan retorted; though his words seemed as if he was joking, the smile on his muzzle was a sad one. “He always sought to see good in others, as it should be for somepony who opposed a mare that always sought evil in others.”

Sought evil… turned them into raiders… was believing in others truly the answer to the Raider Queen’s unusual ability?

Noticing Cardinal Tale looking at me expectantly, I stopped my musing, focusing on retrieving the holotape and passing it to her. My eyes trailed after it as the other unicorn levitated it back to its resting place, still feeling as if I was bound by the Stable Guardian’s voice…

“What exactly…” I began struggling for words. What was it that had captivated me so? His voice? Or what he had said? Or both… “What did the Stable Guardian mean at the end there? What was that?”

Cardinal Tale glanced very briefly at Khan before replying: “It was the Prophecy of the First Khan.”

I frowned, and at the same time, Jack snorted. “Prophecy? Give me a break…”

“When he spoke to the pegasus senators, the Stable Guardian had bared his soul,” the Storykeeper continued, ignoring the griffin’s remark. “When they gave him their reply, he was so in tune with his very being that his sight pierced through the pleasant masks they wore to see them for what they truly were. Under the guise of civility and moral superiority they were corrupt, caring not for the citizens that elected them to be their leaders, but for the power they held and keeping control over them. Almost all of them, barring Senator Rainer and a few others, were like that; not that different from the raiders.

“But at that moment, the Stable Guardian saw something else as well. He saw the fate that awaited the Enclave. He warned the Senator who had tried to help, for as vile as the Enclave’s leaders turned out to be, he wished no harm to fall on them or their citizens, and hoped that they would change.”

“You… expect me to believe that the Stable Guardian saw the future?” I said slowly, raising an eyebrow in the bafflement of that statement.

“Expect?” Khan interjected. “Hardly. Even my grandfather was skeptical of that; when he would later try to recall this moment, he would say that he felt as if there was a fog over his memories of the thoughts he had. Grandfather could still remember the words he had said in this recording, but could not recall what urged him to say them. However, many among our tribe consider them to be a prophecy foretelling a great conflict. Conflict between the evil born in the Wasteland and the Enclave, during which they would either help us, or rain fire upon all. But then the people of the Wasteland would fight them and defeat the Enclave, finally reuniting all three tribes of ponies.”

His words did little to explain to me what I had heard, far from it. Thoughts whirled in my mind as I tried to piece together a theory…

“Oh please,” Jack snorted again, “there’s no such thing as ‘prophecies’.”

“That’s not true,” I automatically remarked as I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. Without pausing my pondering or turning to either Jack or Khan, I continued, “It had been prophesied that Nightmare Moon would return after a thousand years of her banishment, and she did.”

Everypony had heard that story. Princess Celestia banished her corrupted sister into the Moon. A thousand years later her student, the future Ministry Mare of Arcane Science Twilight Sparkle, had found a prophecy about her return, gathered friends, and together they cleansed Nightmare Moon and turned her back into Princess Luna.

Admittedly, what wasn’t known - or at least, we hadn’t been taught about it in Stable Eight - was where had that prophecy had come from. Could it… could it be possible that what Cardinal Tale had said was true and similar circumstances gave rise to that prophecy?

Could the “Prophecy of the First Khan” be real? Could it be an actual prophecy?

“She has you there,” I heard Aite remark with amusement.

“Of for- assuming that’s actually true, there were alicorns and unicorns involved in that affair, weren’t there? I could accept that they have some time viewing spells or whatever, but the Stable Guardian was a pegasus.”

Jack had a point. There were ways to manipulate time with magic. I knew that, even if such magic wasn’t taught in Stable Eight and was far beyond me to research without some sources. At best I theorized that the S.A.T.S. in my PipBuck was some weak variation of time magic… But could it be possible to use such spells to create prophecies? But even if that was possible, only unicorns - and alicorns, obviously - could cast spells, such magic was…

Magic…

All ponies were magical creatures. While unicorns could cast spells, pegasi could control the weather. Everypony knew that. However, those were just the more… obvious traits of ponies’ magical abilities.

Cardinal Tale had said, “When he spoke to the pegasus senators, the Stable Guardian had bared his soul”... I mused. What an interesting choice of words…

Bared his soul…

“… he was so in tune with his very being that his sight pierced through…”

There was one thought stirring in my mind as I recalled those words. A theory concerning the physical manifestation of a pony’s inner magic, stating that they were, in fact, the portrayal of a pony’s soul.

My gaze shifted towards Khan, stopping at the image on his flank, the image that adorned the Mustangs’ banner.

“He saw the fate that awaited the Enclave.”

What had been the Stable Guardian’s cutie mark?

Jack’s annoyed growl jolted me out of my musings. “Even if that prophecy had been true, what exactly would be this ‘new Misery’ that would supposedly threaten even the Enclave? Red Eye?”

“Personally I would sooner put my caps on the alicorns and their so-called ‘Goddess’,” Khan retorted neutrally, shrugging. “But given how they are working together with Red Eye they might both be. Or it could be neither of them, and the threat the prophecy talks about might yet come.”

“Or not come at all,” Jack snorted.

“That is also possible,” Khan agreed, the corner of his mouth betraying he took some amusement in the griffin’s annoyance.

“Not that watching you defend your challenged worldview isn’t entertaining,” Aite spoke up, looking at Jack mischievously, “but I actually wanted to ask something. If those senators were so corrupted as you say,” the bat pony continued looking at Cardinal Tale, then rolled her eyes and added, “or as you say the Stable Guardian saw them to be - which I’m pretty sure you don’t need magic sight or whatever to see, I mean, the Enclave over Hoofington once tried to hire me to assassinate one of their own for crying out loud, they’re all pretty rotten, but I digress - why the heck did they let him speak in the first place?”

That’s an interesting question, I realized, impressed with Aite for thinking about it first. A slight frown crossed my brow though as I noted her remark about the Enclave from ‘over Hoofington’. Considering how secretive Aite had said she had been, it was surprising to learn that a civilization living above the clouds had somehow managed to contact the bounty hunter to try and hire her.

Turning back to Cardinal Tale I saw her ears drop; for the first time anger crossed her muzzle. Despite the question clearly upsetting her, she answered as calmly as before, “That question remained unanswered for a long time, though our first Khan had his suspicions. However, many decades later we have learned the truth,” she said, nodding at Khan.

“When I was young, me and my brothers sneaked into one of the pegasus cloud cities,” he said, surprising me; I hadn’t known that Khan had brothers that were apparently pegas; hadn’t Jack said earlier there were only two pegasi in the tribe? “We only meant to see what it’s like living there, but while doing so we had also learned why the Enclave let our grandfather speak to their leaders.”

My eyes widened; now there was contempt in Khan’s words.

“Just as the Stable Guardian had recorded his speech and planned to let the Wasteland hear their response after editing it, so had the Enclave. Except they edited his entire address to, instead of a plea for help and unity, be a warning to stay away.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, aghast. “How could they do that?!”

“Very easily, apparently,” Khan retorted, not even trying to hide his disgust. “They broadcast the edited speech to their entire nation in order to keep their citizens scared of the ground and keep them up there where they can control them. And what’s even more insulting, the Enclave made my grandfather into a hero. They made statues of him, for the heroic pegasus born below the clouds for bringing them a warning against the danger and savagery of the ponies there!”

Even after all I heard about the Enclave, I could scarcely believe it. To think of anybody taking that passionate, hopeful plea of that young pony, and turning into a warning, marring it with their greed and lust for power… To think that this was their goal from the beginning, to let him speak and try to convince them to help, not knowing that it was hopeless…

It made me furious.

Was Senator Rainer in on this plan too? He sounded so genuine when he spoke to the Stable Guardian… Maybe he was used by some of the other pegasi in charge there, then?

Beside me Jack cursed. “By the Egg, I forgot how much I despise those massive cunts…”

Hearing his disapproval helped calm me down, oddly enough. It was a relief to know we had similar opinions of such disgusting acts as the one the Enclave had committed.

“Bunch of assholes,” Aite agreed, snorting.

Khan nodded, his anger leaving him. “Needless to say, my brothers and I didn’t stay long -- although we were tempted to cause some mayhem before leaving, blow up the statue of our grandfather, return with the recording of what he had really said that day and play it for anypony who would listen.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked, curious how could he stand seeing his grandfather be used by the Enclave’s propaganda.

Khan chuckled sadly. “Because we cooled down and realized little would be gained if we did. It wouldn’t change the pegasi. Most would probably not believe us. At best - and I use this term loosely - we would start a revolution that the Enclave would stop by force. Besides,” he added, shrugging, “the prophecy states that the only thing that will change the skies would be a threat greater than the Raider Queen.”

“Oh for the-” Jack snorted before he could stop himself, causing Khan to utter another chuckle.

Prophecy aside, I could see wisdom in Khan’s words. While “mayhem” could have been cathartic in such circumstances, it did seem unlikely they would have been able to change the way the pegasi lived among the clouds. And if they had started a revolution, ponies would have died.

“In any case,” I heard Khan speak again, “the sins of the Enclave, or whether the prophecy is true, are not part of this tale.”

I looked at the Storykeeper just in time to catch her rolling her eyes. “The Stable Guardian returned to the Wasteland, disheartened,” she intoned when she once again had everybody’s attention. “But his will to save Tenpony Tower and defeat the Raider Queen was as strong as ever. Within the few days they had left, he, Bloodtalons, Steel Rangers, and everybody who came together finished their preparations, and waited.”

Her horn glowed, once again summoning the vision of Tenpony Tower.

“The Raider Queen’s army surrounded Tenpony Tower, intending to besiege it. Whether they planned to starve out everybody inside, or would launch an attack after their reinforcements arrived, was unclear. They weren’t given the chance. Once they arrived, the Stable Guardian and his allies attacked.

“The Steel Rangers launched a frontal assault, drawing the attention of the raiders. Their power armor gave them the greatest chance of surviving such a plan. At the same time, all of the Talons faced the few aerial fighters under Raider Queen’s command; with the greatest of her dragons defeated by the Stable Guardian months prior, they quickly gained the upper hoof. But the true purpose of the fight was for snipers to take out the raiders’ commanders, and the Raider Queen too if it would be possible. Thanks to all the information the Stable Guardian had gathered over the months about the enemy forces they were able to identify them among the enemy army. With the skies under the Talons' control and the raiders' main focus still on the Steel Rangers, they managed to kill many of them, including some of their warlords, in rapid succession.

“The Raider Queen inspired great fear in the raiders, and through it she had assured their loyalty. But to control an army of that size required commanders, and with so many suddenly gone, chaos descended upon them. When the Raider Queen realized what was happening, she ordered her army to retreat so that they could regroup.

“It was all according to plan.”

The vision shifted. Tenpony Tower was still visible, but it was now far away in the distance. Cardinal Tale’s spell focused on the ruins of some collapsed skyscrapers, which, if I recalled Jack’s tale…

“The allies of the Stable Guardian had corralled the retreating army towards this place. Before the battle, the Bloodtalons had placed explosives in structural points of those buildings, so that when detonated, they fell upon the raiders. However, while most of the Raider Queen’s army had been buried under the rubble, she herself and part of her forces managed to escape, as she had been able to hold the collapsing building with her magic long enough for them to get away.

“At the same time that battle had taken place,” Cardinal Tale continued, altering her spell again; now we were surrounded by a big, empty space, with a ton of crevices, ravines, and holes marring the ground, “two more had happened. Far towards the west, the second raider army, composed of the raiders from that half of the Wasteland, had been ambushed by the Steel Rangers’ Stalliongrad contingent as they had made their way to join up with the Raider Queen. Though the raiders’ numbers far outnumbered those of the Steel Rangers, they had brought artillery and tanks, and thanks to the Stable Guardian’s information they were able to position them exactly along the way their enemy would take. The second raider army suffered heavy casualties under the bombardament and soon it had scattered upon the Wasteland.

“The other battle took place at Misery Palace.”

The vision shifted, much to my surprise. As Cardinal Tale mentioned Misery Palace, I had assumed we would once again talk about it without the spell conjuring for us the vision of that place. However, this time, the Mustang Storyteller had shown us…

… what became of it.

Jack had told me that “Steel Rangers shelled it to the ground after her defeat”. It might have been an understatement. Nothing remained of the elegant prison I’d seen in the picture. Gone were the walls, the towers, the oblong buildings and the round building in the center. All of that had been reduced to rubble that had been scattered across the plain. In the center was a giant chasm, spreading further beyond.

Those must be the dungeons the Stable Guardian had mentioned, I mused, looking around the vision. I wonder how much of this had been caused by the Steel Rangers and how much by the passage of time…

“The Steel Rangers besieged the palace,” Cardinal Tale intoned. “Although they wished to bombard the cursed prison, the Stable Guardian’s report of the many, many enslaved ponies inside had stayed their hooves and they had stormed the stronghold instead. They were met with fierce resistance; it turned out that the Raider Queen had left a much stronger force to guard her palace than had been expected. What’s worse, when the Steel Rangers had broken through the walls of the prison and began to evacuate those that were kept there, the creatures that the Stable Guardian had spoken about before the pegasi’s Senate attacked them.”

I looked expectantly at her, but to my disappointment nothing suggested that Cardinal Tale was about to alter her spell to show us what those creatures looked like.

“Of course, he had warned the Steel Rangers of them, although he had doubted they would encounter them. However, it looked as if some of the raiders had released them when they realized they were losing the battle. It had proved disastrous, as the monsters had turned upon everybody, raiders, slaves, and Steel Rangers alike. What the Stable Guardian and his allies expected to be an easy victory turned into a dramatic battle. Ultimately, the Steel Rangers won, though at a heavy cost, and they weren’t able to rescue everybody from Misery’s Palace. This is the result of that battle,” Cardinal Tale finished, spreading her foreleg over the vision.

I shot Jack a sharp look. When he had told me the abridged - very abridged, as I had come to realize - version of this story, he had said that the Steel Rangers had released everybody that had been held there. Did he not know the details of the story, or did he lie to me for some purpose?

“Originally,” Cardinal Tale continued, “the Raider Queen had led the survivors of her army towards her palace. However, word must have reached her of its fall, despite Steel Rangers shooting down any messenger her Queen’s Guard had sent, as she changed their direction abruptly. Now they were heading to rendezvous with the other raider army, oblivious to its fate. Along their way they were pursued relentlessly by the Stable Guardian and the Bloodtalons. They used hit-and-run tactics to chip away at the surviving raiders, slowly reducing their numbers further. However, what cemented the defeat of the Raider Queen was her decision to try and lose them in the Old Olneigh.”

The vision had shifted; now we were on the outskirts of an abandoned pre-war town. It was small, but many of its buildings were nearly intact. My eyes blazed with interest when I noticed that one of them was a hospital, but I quickly turned my attention back to Cardinal Tale. She had said that the Raider Queen had “cemented her defeat” by choosing to go into this empty town. I assumed there was some reason why that had turned out to be a bad idea…

“The town was, as it is to this day, inhabited by a very hostile pack of hellhounds.”

Oooooh, yes, I can understand why that decision had been a mistake then, I remarked, recalling how strong Rexio, who called himself a runt, was. How easily he ripped apart that raider…

“Though there were a number of hellhounds fighting on each side in this conflict, those few of this pack that had fought had all been forced to by the Raider Queen. Their pack saw the raiders, as all ponies for that matter, as enemies, and upon seeing them they attacked them. The Stable Guardian and the Bloodtalons took advantage of the situation. As the raiders were distracted by trying to fight their way out of the hellhounds’ den, they were easy targets from the air. And finally, it happened.” Cardinal Tale stood straighter, her voice growing stronger as she announced. “None could say how it happened in the vicious fight, whether a hellhound, griffin, or even if one of the raider ponies caused it, but as the Raider Queen ran from Old Olneigh deeper into Splendid Valley, she left behind her shattered horn.”

My eyes widened as an unpleasant shiver went down my spine. My recent experience resurfaced in my mind, the memory of that pain and shock… for a moment it felt so strong that I worried if I was experiencing a phantom pain!

I probably appeared shaken or otherwise betrayed my discomfort as I felt Aite nudge her shoulder against mine gently and flash me a sympathetic look, while Cardinal Tale paused and glanced at me apologetically. I flashed her a smile so she knew it was alright.

I shook myself off, pushing the memory away and focusing on Misery. If she had been as powerful as the Stable Guardian had said, the loss of her horn must have shook her even more than it had me. And yet she still found the strength to run away from Old Olneigh? I was barely able to stay conscious for a couple of minutes…

“With the Raider Queen unable to use magic, the greatest threat from the band of raiders was gone,” the Storykeeper resumed. She stopped channeling magic and let the vision disperse, apparently not knowing the place where the next moment had happened. “Also, after the slaughter at Old Olneigh, all that was left with her of the remains of her army were a hoofful of raiders, a few of them being mares of her fanatic Queen’s Guard. The Stable Guardian and the Bloodtalons decided to confront them directly. Not far from Old Olneigh, they surrounded the raiders, and he called on the Raider Queen to surrender.”

I frowned a little. Had the Stable Guardian wanted to hold a trial for her? I supposed it would have been useful if he still wanted to attempt to rebuild Equestria even without the Enclave. Unify all those people by showing them they could bring justice instead of vengeance, establish the rule of law…

“Instead of replying to the Stable Guardian, the Raider Queen, with her shattered horn and bleeding from many other wounds, turned to her raiders. ‘Either die to them or die to me,’ she told them.

“Those were her last known words.

“At once, all her raiders launched themselves into battle, firing upon the Bloodtalons and the Stable Guardian. Even in defeat, wounded and powerless, she instilled such fear in them that they’d rather die fighting her enemies than face her wrath. But while many fell before the Bloodtalons, not all shared their fate. Because moments after the brief exchange between the Stable Guardian and the Raider Queen, they all came under the attack of strange creatures. They were alicorns, like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna of old, but different, hostile and unreasonable. Their appearance startled the Bloodtalons and forced them into defense as the alicorns assaulted them with their magical abilities. In the commotion, the Raider Queen and her few still living raiders slipped away… never to be seen again.

“The Stable Guardian and the Bloodtalons tried to give chase, but the alicorns proved relentless, attacking them until they finally flew away from Splendid Valley. When they returned looking for the trail of the Raider Queen, the alicorns were waiting for them, and forced them to retreat again. When they flew around Splendid Valley, trying to cut her off, they couldn't find her. In the years to come, the Bloodtalons and Steel Rangers kept in touch with all the doctors in the Wasteland capable of restoring a unicorn horn, but none had seen the Raider Queen. Eventually, everybody came to the same conclusion: whether it was the alicorns, hellhounds, some other unnatural creature that dwelled in Splendid Valley, or the Taint, she had met her fate there. The dreaded unicorn, the Raider Queen, was no more.”

Already knowing this thanks to Jack, I nodded absentmindedly, more interested in what happened to the Stable Guardian. How did he go from trying to unite everybody in the Wasteland and rebuild Equestria to founding a tribe?

“With her gone and almost all of her warlords dead, the armies of the Raider Queen disbanded,” Cardinal Tale continued instead, to my slight irritation. “The surviving raiders scattered across the Wasteland and split into small groups; it would be many years before they would become a threat to anybody but travelers and small caravans. The surviving griffins who had been turned into raiders by the Raider Queen formed their own Talon Company.” Beside me, Jack snorted with contempt, but didn’t interrupt the tale. “The hellhounds returned to their packs. The dragons fled, hiding in deep caverns of Equestria, falling into deep slumber. It took some time, but at last, it seemed as if peace had finally come to the Wasteland, even if for a short time.

“The Stable Guardian took part in the initial hunt for the Raider Queen,” she finally said, “but although he wanted to bring her to justice, after she had disappeared he had quickly found himself distracted.” Her horn glowed again. Strangely, she brought back the vision of the ruins of Misery Palace. “The fate of those rescued from this vile place concerned him greatly. Many of them were the brainwashed males from the Raider Queen’s harem. Others were simple slaves that served her, and many more were those who had angered her in one manner or the other and were being relentlessly tortured. One thing they all had in common was that none of them was capable of living on their own. All had been broken by the Raider Queen in that accursed palace. At the Stable Guardian’s request, the ponies of Tenpony Tower took them in, and their therapists worked tirelessly to help them.”

There really are therapists in the Wasteland?! I thought as Cardinal Tale stopped channeling her spell again. Or were back then at least, I suppose… It was awfully nice of the ponies living in Tenpony Tower to take all of those misfortunate people in, although it would have probably been awkward to deny a request made by the pony who had saved them.

“Next, the Stable Guardian set out to find those who might have fled from the palace during the battle; he knew none of them would be raiders, for they defended the Raider Queen’s seat of power to the last breath. Quickly, word reached him of a small group of escaping ponies. He chased after them… and before his eyes was his lost love.”

Lost- wait, lost what?! I thought in confused alarm, staring at the Storykeeper.

Her voice was somber as she spoke. “Though the Stable Guardian had believed all his friends had died the day he first fought the Raider Queen, it had turned out that one of them, the one he had fallen in love with, had survived. The Raider Queen had decided to keep her alive; for what nefarious purpose, nobody shall ever know. But she had not only spared her, but also ensured she was well cared for, and no harm came to her. Perhaps she intended to capture the Stable Guardian alive and to break him by watching his mate suffer? Or… for both him and his mate to see their foal be raised to be a raider? For what the Stable Guardian hadn’t known,” Cardinal Tale added even as the thought came to my mind, “was that at the time of her supposed death, when she had been captured, his lover was pregnant.”

I felt my mouth hang open in a very unladylike manner.

“But it had been a year since that day, and at the moment he found her again, she had gone into labor. She bore him a daughter, winged as he, proving beyond any doubt who the father of the foal was. But the joy the Stable Guardian felt would not last long,” she added sadly. “There had been complications with the birth, and they were out in the middle of the Wasteland, with no doctor for hundreds of miles. She died in his forelegs, asking him to take care of their daughter.”

My ears dropped. What a horrible twist of fate for somepony so righteous! To have the love they thought dead returned to them, only to be taken so soon!

I could see Aite beside me frown, too, and even heard her mutter very softly, “And I thought I was bad luck…” Thankfully it seemed only I heard that remark; I didn’t think Khan would appreciate a comment that, depending on what the bat pony had meant, could suggest that his grandfather had brought this upon his grandmother.

“Once the Stable Guardian had recovered from the shock, cradling his daughter he finally took a close look at those who had been traveling with his love,” Cardinal Tale said, her horn flaring up again.

I looked on in surprise as images of six ponies appeared, their faces visible. All were old, older than the Stable Guardian. My gaze passed over the four stallions and focused on the two mares. Both were clad in crude barding with spikes, and their muzzles were twisted in matching scowls.

Are- Were they…?

“Four of them were males from the Raider Queen’s harem,” Cardinal Tale began, “who had felt sympathy towards his love and helped her get away when the fighting began, but the other two, much to the Stable Guardian’s confusion, were members of the Queen’s Guard, the Raider Queen’s fanatic bodyguards. The two explained, all while scowling at him, that the last order they’d received from their queen was to make sure her prized prisoner and her baby remained safe. This was why, when the palace was attacked and the Steel Rangers broke through their defenses, those two had taken the pregnant mare away. And this was the reason why they hadn’t attacked the Stable Guardian, the one responsible for the defeat of their queen. As much as they hated him for it, they knew the foal would be safer with him, and so they couldn’t attack him or else they would be breaking the Raider Queen’s order.”

I was beginning to see why the Stable Guardian had called the Queen’s Guard’s mares ‘fanatic’. How could one be so loyal to somepony that, in order to fulfill their order, they had to trust the one who had defeated them? Have they really had no minds of their own? I mean, obviously I was glad that the Stable Guardian and his foal had been together, but those raiders just perplexed me.

“Listening to them, the Stable Guardian slowly began to realize just how much danger the foal would be in. He had made many enemies in the Wasteland during that last year. The Raider Queen might have been gone and her armies disbanded, but the raiders still prowled around. Who’s to say one or two bands wouldn’t want to seek vengeance against him? What’s worse, not all of the Raider Queen’s warlords had been accounted for. The Stable Guardian also knew that he couldn’t be sure that the Enclave didn’t count him among their enemies now, for he could always return and open their people’s eyes to their lies. Holding his daughter, he felt beset by enemies on all sides. He knew he could deal with that in his efforts to restore Equestria, but he dared not risk his daughter’s safety.

“With a heavy heart, he returned to his Stable.”

Frowning, I watched as Cardinal Tale once again conjured the vision of the Stable Guardian’s Stable’s entrance. Once again, he stood before the open door, in which the shadowy figure stood.

“Standing before his Overmare, he explained to her what had happened. He pleaded for help, that if he was still banished from the Stable, to at least take his daughter in, knowing she would be much safer there than in the Wasteland with him.”

Before I could express my amazement at the sacrifice the Stable Guardian was prepared to make, to be forever separated from his daughter if it meant her safety, Cardinal Tale scowled.

“The Overmare said no.”

Perhaps I should have expected that, knowing I was standing near the son of the filly in question, but I still felt myself growing angry at that Overmare.

“She had condemned the Stable Guardian for disobeying her, condemned him for choosing the Wasteland over his Stable, and condemned him for fathering a child out of wedlock. She then said that her Stable wasn’t a place for bastards.

“Then, the Stable Guardian snapped.”

“About freakin’ time…” Aite murmured, prompting Jack to hush her.

“Passing his daughter to one of the Queen’s Guard to hold, he lunged at the Overmare, grabbed her by the horn and lifted her into the air, twisting her head painfully and raising his hoof to strike her. But as he held her, his anger slowly gave way to loathing. Dropping her to the ground, he pierced her with his gaze. As with the pegasus senators before, he could see her now for what she truly was. He told her that her words were venom, and her teachings poison. The Stable Guardian said that true good didn’t come from blind adherence to impossibly high and pure standards, but from turning one’s sadness into kindness, from showing compassion to others no matter who they are, from standing up against injustice but only condemning the acts, not the ponies who had done them. He spoke of the Goddesses, of Celestia and Luna, who were worshiped outside of his Stable as well, and said that they would have never wanted them to be like the Overmare, that they would have never wanted them to live their lives according to some strict doctrine but would have wanted them to be happy instead. And lastly, he told the Overmare that she was right in one thing: that this was no place for his daughter. He wanted her to be safe from evil, and he now saw that his Stable’s core was rotten with it. With those words, he left his Stable for the third and final time, never to return.”

Never to return… Would I have been able to do that? My circumstances were vastly different, but… I would be lying if I said I hadn’t hoped to return to Stable Eight at some point.

“The confrontation between the Stable Guardian and the Overmare had drawn attention from the Stable Dwellers. Many had gathered near the entrance when they had heard that their friend had returned, and bore witness to what had transpired. They passed it to others, and many realized that what he had said about the Overmare and the way they lived was true. Within a day, a few of the braver ones had left the Stable as well and followed after the Stable Guardian.

“They found him not far from the Stable, wondering what to do. He was surprised as they approached him, and listened to them as they said they wished to live free of the Overmare’s oppressive rules, even if it meant living in the Wasteland.

“The Stable Guardian looked at them, then at the two raider mares and the former slaves, then at his daughter. Finding strength in her happy gaze, he decided. If they all agreed, he would lead them, show them how to survive in the Wasteland, and they would do so together. All of them, Stable Dwellers, raiders, slaves, and Wastelanders alike. They would form a tribe, a family, and would look after each other, and anybody who needed help, never turning a blind eye to the suffering of others.

Cardinal Tale’s horn glowed again, summoning images of a small group of ponies, all old in the vision though young at the time when this tale had taken place.

“Wishing to balance the oppressive lives the Stable Dwellers had known and the reckless freedom the raiders craved, the Stable Guardian, inspired by a pre-war history book he had found during his travels, The Wild Free Ponies: a History of the Mustangs, named their tribe Mustangs. They would forever be free, not bound to any place but to each other and following the example of their leader who always sought to help others. He took up the name of Khan, wishing to bury the past behind him, just as he would offer to anypony wishing to join their tribe in the years to come, whether they were a trader, a Steel Ranger, a slave, or a raider. That was the way we would live, from then on to this day and further into the future.”

The vision dispersed, leaving behind only the image of the Stable Guardian for a heartbeat longer. Then it too was gone, but Cardinal Tale’s attention was still on the spot where it had been. It was where the small table with several artifacts stood, along with one that had been clearly visible through all this time we had talked, ever since we walked in here.

As the long tale had come to the end, I gazed at the barding of the Stable Guardian, identical to how it looked in the vision, displayed on a tailor’s dummy, with his PipBuck on its outstretched leg.

Footnote: 20% to next level!

Author's Note

Sorry it took so long, editing the chapter after it was written took surprisingly long.

Anyway, thanks to TimePrincess, Zaleros, Sage Probo, guardianxela for their great work on proofreading/editing, and to Reese for final proofreading^^

As always, special thanks to Kkat for creating Fallout: Equestria of course, to Somber for Project Horizons and Homelands, and to Heartshine for Speak, which are as canon as the original story here^^