Author's Note

A short Fallout: Equestria sidefic.

Guilt: Mercy

Is it not normal for a pony to be kind? There was a time I would never have asked. I didn't like to bother other ponies pointlessly, and I thought I knew. I thought kindness was a constant in every pony. Now I can only keep vigil over the ruins of my home. I stand and doubt, I watch as nothing happens, I try to track the days.

Ponyville sleeps the sleep of ancients, the facades of blasted buildings staring in unending torment across streets devoid of the bustle I remember, devoid of any pony at all. For what must be decades, I've prayed to any who will hear the pleas of an unworthy pony whose only wish is to see a living creature. I would die to see anyone, even Gilda.

I thought the first few years were the worst, those years of looking out on a dying world. Ponies struggled or gave up - it made no difference. I watched those lucky enough to survive the beginning of the end die horrid, lingering deaths. I watched vultures descend from the gloom of the sealed skies to pick the bodies, only to fall prey to the same sickness. I had desperately wanted to scream, to cry, to go and give the dying ponies a little comfort before I, too, succumbed to my deserved fate.

I watched when the last of the carrion birds fell from the sky over Ponyville, vomiting its organs. I watched as stillness rolled over the town like an oppressive fog, and wordlessly, I begged everything I could think of for any sign of life. Where there is life, there is hope, and I lived in a dead world.

I thought those first years were the worst, those years of looking out on the Reaper's crop. I was wrong, for long after I lost track of time, I saw life return to Equestria.

~*~*~*~

I was beyond loneliness. Ever since my poor Angel Bunny succumbed to the glare of a cockatrice, I was the last sentient creature I knew was alive. I knew Applejack's family was headed to a Vault, but she was the only one of my friends who was likely to survive the first few days - and the endless march of years must have taken her. Every pony died - when the megaspells hit or in the Vaults, it didn't matter; none lived to care where the bodies fell, and the whole world was gripped in the darkness of my folly.

And so I was suspicious of the ponies I saw in the distance. Mirage, or delusion, I chose not to care. I didn't know then that a tree could not experience psychosis, so I chose not to care when the trio passed through the blasted remains of Ponyville.