Fallout Equestria: Homelands

By Somber

Prologue

Chapel was quiet today. The settlement was nearly unrecognizable from a year ago with all the construction going on. Only the church that had given the town its name and the ruin of the old post office remained standing after the battle a year ago. The graves of Equestria’s war dead stretched well beyond the boundaries of the town, row upon row of enobled corpses there interred. Most old, but several new, laid to rest after the horrible fighting that had consumed the valley.

Today, though, everything was quiet. A lull before new building materials arrived. No sounds of hammers banging away like there were in so many other places in the Hoof. People were rebuilding all over the valley; peace brought safety, safety brought opportunity, and both attracted all sorts from all over the Wasteland. It gave some people a chance to touch the lives of lost loved ones.

Scotch Tape was picking through the ruins of a basement. The olive earth pony brushed back her shaggy blue mane as she scanned the heaps of boxes and books before her. Some would consider her a young mare, but far too many annoying people referred to her as a filly. “Sorry it took a year for us to get down here for your mom’s things,Majina,” she said, using her PipBuck light to help illuminate the underground space.

“That’s okay,” answered the soft, little voice of the zebra filly, the inheritor of these things that had survived the fight, as she quietly poked through some corroded metal boxes. Her mane had grown out a bit, falling like a curtain over half of her face. Her green eyes shimmered wetly as she examined her mother’s effects. Most of the boxes were full of so much mildewed trash, but there were a few here and there that had intact old books and scrolls. Still, they’d been lucky more hadn’t been taken, the basement protected from scavengers by the wrath of Chapel’s mayor, community leader, and CEO, Charity.

“You know, I really expected this to be nothing but stupid masks and other garbage. Some of this is actually interesting,” commented the last of the trio, ignoring their indignant glares. Pythia sat nearby, the cloaked zebra reading through some of the scrolls at random. Scotch Tape didn’t know much about zebras except that they had stripes, and Pythia’s stripes were just weird. The markings resembled the orbits of planets, which apparently was a bad thing. “Too bad; sooner or later, some creep is going to break in here and snag it. I think someone already cleared out everything worth over two caps.”

“We’ll take whatever we can back to the zebra camp. I’m sure someone there would like them,” Scotch assured Majina.

“Yeah,” Pythia said with a roll of her sharp yellow eyes. “Back to getting scowls and gestures to ward off evil star wickedness. Yay.” Receiving a sharp glare from Scotch Tape, the cloaked filly raised her hooves in surrender and returned to perusing old maps.

“I don’t want to go back to the camp,” Majina sniffed as she poked halfheartedly through the basement. “I don’t have anyone there. Anywhere.” The zebra filly rubbed her brilliant green eyes as she fought back the tears.

A year ago, that’d been different, but then, everything had been different. Scotch had been dragged along in the wake of a terrifying pony named Blackjack all over the valley called the Hoof, into the depths of the earth and all the way to the moon. Along the way, she’d lost her father, her friends, everypony who had mattered to her. Sometimes, that felt like some kind of dream.

“And Chapel reminds you of your mom,” Scotch Tape said with a sigh. “I feel the exact same way about 99. And Chapel doesn’t even feel like Chapel anymore. So many new ponies are moving in that it just feels like the Crusaders are fading away. I don’t know where Adagio, Allegro, and Sonata went. Charity might still be running the shop, but it just doesn’t feel the same anymore. Nothing’s the same anymore.”

“Yeah. Life sucks. Wear a hat,” Pythia replied as she looked at a new scroll. “Where did your mom get all of these, anyway?”

“She took them from the Legate when we fled,” Majina said as she gazed forlornly around the room. “Stashed them away and brought them here when she had a chance. She thought they might be important.”

“Well, she wasn’t wrong,” Pythia said as her eyes flickered across the page. “A lot of these are dispatches from Roam. Stars only know how they survived. Someone must have thought they were special.”

“Aren’t you going to join the other Starkatteri?” Scotch Tape asked. Scotch didn’t know much about zebras, other than that most of them belonged to various tribes, which was apparently a big deal. Majina was of some storytelling tribe, which was funny given she wasn’t much of a storyteller, while Pythia was a part of some freaky star worshiping tribe that apparently had done some pretty messed up things in the past. Still, Pythia’d helped out during the bad times a year ago, but Scotch Tape still wasn’t sure what to make of her.

“You mean wrinklebutt, meltyface, and ‘bwa ha ha’? Not likely,” Pythia said with a snort. “I wanted to understand a shadow on the future. Those three can go back to plotting... whatever,” she continued with a scowl and dismissive wave of her hoof. Scotch stared at her for a moment, and Pythia glanced up at her. “What? In case you haven’t noticed, no one likes me or my tribe. Not even other Starkatteri.”

“Well, you have to do something,” Scotch Tape said.

“I am. I am reading about reallocation of shamanistic fetishes away from the front at Shattered Hoof Ridge,” she answered, brow furrowing. “What about you? Aren’t you building the future or somesuch?”

“Yeah. I offered my plans and designs to Triage. Then she patted me on the head and went to some meeting. With Blackjack gone, I’m just some filly again. I’ll need four or five years before they start taking me seriously. The plans are in for Chapel, but we’re way down on the reconstruction list, and Charity’s only still in charge because Keeper says so. Adults just won’t take orders from kids.” Damn it, she’d gone to the moon! She’d been shot at! She’d had sex! She’d designed indoor plumbing for Chapel! Why did she have a half dozen or so more years before ponies took her seriously?

“Well, give it a few years and bitch at them for not listening to you when their toilets stop–” And at that moment, Pythia froze. Her sharp yellow eyes narrowed at the scroll she was reading if trying to stare a hole through it. “No,” she muttered. “What is that?”

Majina and Scotch regarded each other. “What is what?” they asked in bafflement.

Pythia wasn’t cute, or graceful. Her face was all scowls and frowns and hard glares. Her body hadn’t quite entered the awkward boniness that came with maturity. Majina and Scotch Tape blinked at her as the filly’s yellow eyes widened. “No, wait. I’ve heard of that!” She tossed the scroll aside and started to dig through her saddlebags, pulling out a plastic bag containing a stack of rune-covered three by five cards. Pythia withdrew them and started flipping through. “Where did I hear of that?”

“What? What are you doing?” Majina asked with a little frown, sniffing and wiping her eyes. “What are those?”

“Notes some Starkatteri zebras have made of some of the nastier things in the world,” she said as she flipped through. “The Eye of the World. I know I’ve heard that phrase before...”

“You keep them on notecards?” Scotch asked with a half smile.

Pythia stopped, giving Scotch Tape a flat look. “What should I keep them in? A black ponyhide tome with runes of evil on the cover? ‘Cause I think we tried that once,” she said scornfully before resuming her flipping. Then she found what she was searching for, her eyes scanning the glyphs immaculately penned on the card. “Wha...” She looked at the scroll. “No... but why...” Back to the card. “They wouldn’t...” She read the scroll again.

“What? What is it?” Majina asked with a small frown.

“Just... a feeling,” she said as she pulled a map of the night sky out of her saddlebags, notes scribbled all over the smudged, smeared, and painstakingly restored thing. Then she took off the crystal pendant she'd been wearing and dangled it over the map, her gaze intently fixed. “What’s the Eye of the World? Does this matter?” she muttered as she stared. The swaying pendant refracted the light so a little spot played over the map. Maybe it was a trick of the eye, but that little pinprick seemed to linger on one cluster of stars longer than others. “Thuban?” Doubt played on her face, and then her eyes popped wide with alarm.

“What, what is it?” Scotch asked.

“A snake of a star. Thuban doesn’t play around. He’s always deadly serious and crazy smart, and he’s laughing right now,” Pythia said as she continued to watch the map. “If I go...” She paused and frowned. “No? Then who?” Her eyelid twitched a moment. “Are you sure? Tell me you’re joking.” The pendant seemed to sway a little faster, and Scotch Tape could almost imagine the map hissing to the filly.

Then she grabbed the swaying crystal, stopping it in its path. “I need to go,” she blurted. Pythia immediately put the cards in her bags and stowed them, then started to shove letters and papers in after them. “Actually, we need to go. All of us.” She folded the map up and put the crystal around her neck. “Grab all these papers so I can go over them later, but we need to go. Now!”

“Go?” Scotch Tape asked with a frown. “Go where?”

“The Homelands. I need to see if this order was actually carried out or not,” Pythia replied. “I doubt it was. I mean, I can’t think of any zebra that would actually do it... but I have to make sure.” She rose to her hooves. “Come on. Get them loaded up, and then we need to get going!”

“The ‘Homelands’?” Scotch Tape asked, and then her eyes went wide. “You mean the zebra lands?”

“Aren't you a smart pony! Gold star! Now come on,” Pythia said, gesturing to the papers.

“You want to go all the way to the Homelands?” Majina asked with a little frown.

“Yeah,” she said, then pointed a hoof at Scotch. “I’ll need you to find somepony with a boat.” Then she pointed at Majina. “And I’ll need you to come with me so that they don’t make stupid warding gestures when I ask important questions.” The two didn’t answer. They just stared at her. “What? Did you two have anything else pressing to do? You don’t want to go to the camp," she said, fixing her piercing yellow eyes on Majina before snapping her gaze to Scotch. "Nopony will take you seriously. So why not?”

Scotch Tape’s mouth worked. “‘Cause... I mean... do you even know how to get to the zebra lands?”

“Sure. By boat. After that, I plan to ask for directions.” Pythia started for the stairs, but then paused. “Why, do you have something else to do?”

The pair looked at each other, and twin tiny smile formed on their faces. They gathered up the rest of the scattered papers and together followed Pythia out of the basement. Majina gathered up a few trinkets, too: a smiling wooden mask, a necklace of dark mahogany beads, and whatever darts she could find that fit in her bamboo blowgun, Mr. Sleepytime. “You know,” Scotch Tape said, “I think I know a pony with a boat who’d be willing to help us...”

* * *

“What a mess,” Pythia said crossly as they trotted out onto the bridge… or, rather, what had once been a bridge. The cracked asphalt ended at a faded word painted on the surface: Mercy. Beyond that, where once there’s been an ominous city of looming black towers, there was nothing but a smooth, nearly perfectly round lake. The remains of the Luna Dam to the south clinging to the cliff walls were all that remained of the city, the Hoofington River pouring out of the canyon in a foamy deluge.

Yet the Hoof was recovering. With clear skies, no more Enervation, and the careful assistance of the Commonwealth’s seed stocks, green was returning to the valley with almost frightful speed. It was as if the land was now attempting to make up for centuries of lost time. Across the lake, the territory around the marble edifices of the University was a massive hive of activity. To the north, the same was occurring along the stretch of shore between the Arena and Riverside, now Lakeside.

And yet there was precious little on the lake itself. No ponies playing on the beaches, fishing the depths, or boating across the surface. Only one vessel sat moored beneath the spur of concrete jutting out over the waves, and somehow even it seemed to cling to the shore, as if afraid of the depths of that lake.

Perched on that precarious edge over the waves was the pony they’d come to see. The turquoise unicorn mare sat upright on her rump, several empty bottles beside her. She hummed to herself, rocking back and forth as if at any moment she would pitch forward and tumble the fifty feet to the water below.

“Ahoy, Captain!” Scotch Tape said with as much forced cheer as she could muster. The mare didn’t turn at her voice, and so Scotch Tape walked closer and closer to that edge. As tough as Equestrian wartime engineering was, there was a word for half a parabolic arch: time bomb. Still, she drew closer till she could have a look at Thrush’s face. Two sets of eye patches covered her eyes. Scotch Tape sighed, looked back down the bridge at Pythia and Majina, and shouted into her ear. “Ahoy!”

She jerked upright, swinging her head around this way and that before she faced Scotch Tape, leaning in towards her as Scotch leaned away. “I’m out of rum,” she croaked.

Scotch dug in her saddlebags and fished out a bottle. Without even lifting a patch, Thrush sniffed once… twice… then, completely blind, she levitated the bottle and popped the cork. Upending it, the entire contents disappeared down her throat in a long series of loud gulps.

Then she leapt to her hooves. “Ahoy ahoy! Shiver me timbers! Lower the gangplank and jib the jab! Raise up the mizzenmast before I keelhaul the lot of you scurvy searats! She practically danced on the edge of the precipice, still blinded by the matching eyepatches. Suddenly, perched on one hind hoof, she paused and pried up the patch over her left eye up, peering down at Scotch. “Oh. Hello,” she muttered slowly, then asked a second later, “Are we acquainted?”

“It’s me, Captain. Scotch Tape?” Scotch tried a smile. “I was with Blackjack when… well… a year and a half ago? You took us to Tenpony?”

“I haven’t the foggiest,” she said, letting the patch fall and hopping back to sitting on her rump.

“Captain Thrush!” Scotch shouted into her ear, and the mare lurched away, forelegs windmilling wildly as she nearly fell over once more.

“Byeahay!” she shouted, and then paused again. “Bloody bad day that was,” she muttered, pushing her large captain’s hat back and tugging off one eyepatch. Then she moved the other, sliding it over to cover the opposite eye. She sighed as she regarded Scotch Tape. “That was that thing with the time and the box before the thing happened, aye?”

She could still remember the sounds. Scotch Tape swallowed, her throat dry. “Yes. The thing that happened on the Seahorse.”

“Still got the bloody nailholes,” she muttered, then motioned a hoof in a hooking gesture to Scotch. The filly extracted another bottle of rum… well, technically wine mixed with some whiskey and some brown sugar added, but that was close to rum, right? Thrush took several swallows before she asked. “So. What perchance be foretell this meeting of you and I?”

“I need to get to the zebra lands,” Scotch Tape answered, gesturing for the pair behind her to come closer.

“Funny,” Captain Thrust muttered as she peered into the bottle. “I can’t taste the wormwood at all.” She then laughed. “But I must be drinkin’ absinthe, because I could have sworn you said you’re wanting to travel to the zebra lands.”

“We are,” Majina said quietly.

“So pack up those green faeries and let's get going,” Pythia said irritably.

Thrush rotated, sitting with her hind legs crossed in what looked like quite an uncomfortable position as she faced the trio, her tail dangling over the edge. She peered from one to the next, pursing her lips. “You don’t just go to the zebra lands. It’s not like a little hop, skip, and jump across the pond and then there you are. The zebra lands are a nightmare of monsters and megaspells. I’ve only been there five times, and that was four times too many.”

“Well, it’s either you or we go to Dawn Bay and hope we can catch a boat there,” Pythia said with a snort.

“Or track down the Rampage and see if they can fly us there,” Majina suggested.

“Or we hike allllll the way down to Shattered Hoof Ridge,” Pythia threw in.

“But we’re going to get there, one way or another.” Scotch Tape said adamantly.

“You don’t… ugh…” Thrush took another long pull of the bottle. “It’s not as simple as just going there. I got no charts. No destination. And there are nasty things what live in the sea that will eat the Seahorse in one bite. Any zebra vessel, and they’re almost all zebras, would kill us on sight on general principles of maritime honor. I’d do the same to them if they came to our shores.”

“There has to be a way. Zebras came to Dawn Bay to join the Remnants,” Majina insisted. “Mother came from there.”

“Aye. But they’re not coming any more,” Thrush answered, waving a hoof at the lake. “Funny thing. When you vaporize a cursed city of cursed curseness, there’s not much reason to come and vaporize it again.”

“Well. Looks like we’ll have to go another way,” Pythia said with a shrug.

“Sorry for bothering you. It was nice to see you again,” Scotch Tape said as the three started away from the mare. “I know Blackjack loved drinking with you.”

Ten steps. “Wait,” the captain croaked, and they paused. The captain’s uncovered eye stared past them as she weaved back and forth. Then she whined in the back of her throat, as if the words struggled for freedom. Finally, she spoke. “There may be a way. It’s not enough to get all the way there, but you’ll have a chance.”

“How?” Pythia asked immediately.

“You’ll need to make contact with the Atoli.”

“You mean Atori?” Majina queried.

“Whatever.” Thrush rolled her eye. “They’re the zebras what sails the seas. They can get you to a safe harbor in the zebra lands proper. Otherwise, you’re just going to get stuck in some radioactive bog or megaspell-warped wasteland, or worse.”

“So, how do we do that? Sail out and raise a white flag?” Pythia asked.

Thrush laughed harshly. “Only if you wants them to strangle you with it. No. The Atoli have rules… at least the ones what aren’t raiders do.”

“There are zebra raiders?” Scotch Tape asked with a little frown.

“Of course. And slavers too. Three small fry like yourself would be easy pickings for them. Even the Atoli proper might string you up if you don’t approach them just right,” Thrush said as she considered the three. “But safer than walking all the way to Shattered Hoof or taking a skyboat.”

“Airship,” Scotch corrected.

“Whatever.” Thrush sniffed disdainfully.

“But there is a way, right?” Pythia urged.

Thrush screwed up her face, an ‘nnngh’ noise in her throat, before finally answering. “Yes. No. Maybe. I know one ship that might do it. Traditional, you might say. If they’re still sailing. If they haven’t been wiped out. They hold to the old code and agreements still.”

“Great. So take us to them!” Pythia said, getting a scowl from the captain. “Er, please?”

“Told you. They see the Seahorse, they’ll send her to the bottom. Traditional like,” she said with a smirk. She eyed the three of them, her lips curling in a sure smirk. “But there is a way. You won’t like it, but it’s your best shot at getting there with all your bits. And trust me, you want to keep your bits.”

“So, are you going to tell us how?” Pythia demanded crossly.

She did.

She was right: Scotch Tape didn’t like it.

“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Scotch admitted as they scrambled to stock up on what they’d need to make the journey. Scotch had enough saved from her adventures a year ago to get the food and supplies she’d need. Charity, the filly shopkeeper, didn’t even say hello as she talked business with some caravaners. Just another hint she didn’t belong here anymore than in her old stable. Then the three were trotting their way back to the Seahorse. A strange, unfamiliar sense of excitement was bubbling in the back of her mind, shushing her father’s voice warning her of all the things that could go wrong.

As they approached the old refurbished Equestrian patrol boat sitting under the broken bridge, however, something emerged from the rocks and long grass that brought all three to a skidding stop as it walked in front of the trio. She wasn’t any bigger than the three of them, but anyone who ran into Precious had a similar reaction.

Maybe it was the glossy, lavender scales or the green spines that ran along the filly’s neck and reptilian tail, or the claws that tipped the ends of her feet. Precious was a monsterpony, created by mad science during the war... or something. Scotch Tape had never gotten the entire story, and maybe Precious hadn’t either. A year ago she come to Chapel as part of a raid and had just stuck around, like a watch... dragonpony thing. She stared at the three with her sapphire eyes as she stood in their path.

“Where you goin’?” she asked, her voice low and soft as her claws kneaded the grass underneath her.

“Um,” they shared a look. “On a trip?”

“A boat trip,” Majina said as she jabbed at the Seahorse behind Precious.

Precious’s scaly tail swished back and forth behind her in the grass, those snake-slitted eyes boring into Scotch’s. “To... the zebras?” Scotch said weakly.

“Can I come?” Precious asked, and the three shared a look.

“You... want to come? It’s a long way. It’ll be dangerous,” Scotch pointed out.

The monsterpony merely shrugged. “I wanna go with you.”

“Why?” Scotch pressed, still skeptical.

She furrowed her brows. “Just do,” she said with a growl and a curl of smoke.

“Oh, let her come! If something nasty comes out of the ocean, she can eat it,” Pythia blurted impatiently, then scowled back at the monsterpony. “Long as it isn’t us.”

Precious averted her eyes and looked at the ship, giving a little shudder. “Fine,” she said as she turned and stalked ahead of them. Her motion was a little too fluid, too predatory, to be considered ‘trotting’.

“Is she okay?” Majina asked, watching Precious ahead of them with a worried frown.

“She’s half dragon. If she’s not okay, it’s something else’s problem. Just so long as it’s not ours,” Pythia snapped irritably as she followed.

Scotch Tape shared a look with Majina before the zebra filly gave a worried frown and headed down to the boat. Scotch turned to give one last look at Chapel, the little town that once been home to so many orphaned children like herself, now just another settlement eager to put the past behind it. Like Scotch. She’d lost her home, her family, and her friends. If she was to find new ones, it wouldn’t be here.

Turning, she descended to the ship waiting below to take her into the unknown.

Author's Note

Editor’s notes:
Somber: Here’s my new story. I hope it entertains.
swicked: ...and thus began Fallout: Not Equestria! Hopefully we covered everything a new reader would need to know about this lot of weirdos. Hope you enjoy the ride!

New notes: Huge thanks to Dima for his art work. Check out his page here.