FoE:Wayfaring Stranger (experimental one shot)
Early one afternoon, Dad and I sat in the rustic old cabin we called home, drinking coffee and talking before I'd have to head off to work. He was telling me another story from his youth, centuries ago. See, I was adopted at a young age by an earth pony ghoul. I was only a couple years old at the time, so it never really felt strange to me. This is the way it's always been. He's the only family I've ever had.
Of course, ghouls are a dying breed now. The radiation that's sustained the ghoul population went away when the Gardens of Equestria megaspell went off. Ever since then, every little injury he's received has been unable to heal and he's steadily been growing weaker. He always tried to let on like he was okay, but I'd known for a while that he was just trying to keep me from worrying. Of course, I wasn't thinking about that at the time. I was just enjoying my drink and listening to the deep, raspy sound of his voice telling me a story about an experience he'd had when he was in the military during the Great War. I'd always loved his stories and listened intently, imagining what the events he described would have looked like.
"When I was on my way to the latrine, I went past the galley and saw a whole case of canned bacon. I didn't see anypony watching, so you'd better believe I stole every damn can. I could hide under my field jacket. Well, it wasn't long after that we could see the shoreline and the officer hollered 'Jump!' Well, I figured the water'd be shallow enough to wade through, so I jumped off that boat not thinkin' anything of it. Well, my steel helmet, rifle, ammunition and whatnot would have been hard enough to swim with, but all those cans of bacon on top of it all made me sink like a rock as soon as I hit the water. I tried to remember which direction shore was, but before I could do anything, I felt a strong hoof grab me by the belt and hoist me up. It was Heavyweight, that fella who used to be a boxer before he enlisted. He carried me all the way to shore and dumped me on the sand. I was just laying there on the sand choking and gasping. He just stood there grinning and said to me, 'No need to thank me. I'd hate to let anything happen to perfectly good bacon.'"
He never ran out of interesting stories to tell. Of course, it shouldn't be surprising. He'd spent a lot of time out in the world, lived through better and worse times than most folks would ever see. I didn't have time for another story though. I had to go to work. Back then, I was the whippin' colt for the Alley Bucks, a fairly new little gang in the town of Neighberg. That was a couple decades after the NCR had taken control of the area, which made it suck even more being the guy who had to do all the jobs that nobody else wanted. The NCR didn't take kindly to gangs, militias or any sort of power or authority that someone might favor over their own. That being said, the pay was consistent (even if there wasn't much of it) seeing as how there was almost always something that needed to be done.
I spent the day chopping firewood, cleaning rad-hog heads 'til nothing was left but the skulls for use as decorations and doing whatever else needed to be done. I was always sure to ask if there was anything else I could do or if there was any better way I should be doing what I was doing. When I was cleaning up the back room of the clubhouse, I asked Max Volume, the officer overseeing operations there at the time if there was any way I could do better and he repeated something he'd said before that really stuck with me, "There's not always a better way of doing things. Sometimes, there's just suck." I smiled a little at that as I continued scrubbing down a particularly nasty mop sink with steel wool. "Well, I guess I'm doing everything right then, 'cause I'm feelin' the suck." It was actually a pretty quiet day. No fighting, no serious issues to deal with, just some sort of monotonous chores.
When I got home that night, I was sore from the heavy lifting that many of the tasks I was given involved and also seriously in need of a shower. All the industrial strength cleaning chemicals and all the other nasty shit covering my black uniform couldn't be good. I idly hoped that it didn't ruin the color. The color of an Alley Buck uniform signifies rank. Black uniforms were for the lowest ranking members, then comes dark grey, then a sort of light grey like you'd see on a sweat suit. Finally, officers earn colored robes. If my uniform was anything other than black, I could get in trouble for displaying a rank that I don't actually hold. Max was usually pretty pleasant as long as you do your job, but I'd seen how tough he could be about uniform violations.
I hung the black cloak up on the coat rack by the front door and walked around to the shop in the back to tell Dad I was home. I saw him slumped over in his chair with his head resting on the workbench in front of him. Apparently he'd fallen asleep while working on a project. It made sense. After all, it was pretty late and he was always one of those "early to bed, early to rise" types. Rather than wake him up, I simply cleaned myself up and went to bed.
I took my time getting ready in the morning seeing as how I wasn't usually expected to show up for work 'til four in the afternoon. I went back to the shop, expecting to see Dad up and doing something, coffee from early in the morning being kept warm on a hot plate. Instead, I saw that he was still slumped over in his chair, in the same exact position he'd been in when I got home last night. For the longest time, I'd known that something like this would happen eventually. Still holding out some hope, I put a claw on his shoulder and shook him a little. It was pointless though. We wasn't breathing and had no pulse, but that was normal for ghouls. The thing that bothered me was that I he was just laying there with his head down, completely unresponsive.
Intellectually, I understood what had happened. I'd known for years that one day this would happen. I just couldn't accept that that day had come. It just didn't feel real. I felt completely detached, like I was watching everything from a third person perspective. On some emotional level, I just couldn't process that this had actually happened.
Heading out to the tool shed, I grabbed a shovel. I surveyed the area around the cabin for a suitable spot and when I found one, I drew a rectangular outline in the soil and began to dig. The hole was nearly up to my shoulders when I finally collapsed in the shallow grave and began to cry. It wasn't a controlled cry, one with nothing but a few tears shed. It was a drawn out series of messy, undignified sobs. I don't know how long I spent laying there before I regained my composure enough to continue digging. What I do know is that it was a couple hours to noon when I began digging and that it was after dark, the freezing night air burning in my lungs when I figured the hole was sufficiently deep to keep scavengers from digging up and eating the body.
I wrapped Dad in a white, twin sized sheet, carried him out back and set him carefully in that hole. I stood there for some time, just staring at him, wondering if I should say something, wondering if there was some sort of little ceremony I was supposed to do. I'd never committed anyone to the soil before. I remembered that he said he'd been married when the bombs fell. While he met a stranger fate, his wife died of radiation poisoning in the crude, home-made fallout shelter they shared. "Nobody can really understand death, the idea of just not existing or of going to some strange place totally different from this world." he'd told me "I reckon we're not meant to understand it."
"Suppose I'll be seeing you before long," I muttered softly. "'Til then, I'll to make you proud."
Once I'd filled in the hole and fashioned a wooden crucifix to make the grave, I went back inside, packed a bag, grabbed my hunting rifle and started off towards Neighberg. Dad had done a lot in his life to help folks. He'd fought for his country during The War, he'd served in private security for a while too. He'd saved trade caravans and the like for longer than most could probably imagine being alive. He even went and took in a poor orphaned little hatchling and raised him like a real son.
Towards the end, the only reason I stayed at home was because he needed me to take care of him. Shit, that was the only reason I was with the Alley Bucks. I couldn't find any other decent paying work that wasn't too far away from home. Now that he was gone, I figured it was time I live up to his legacy. I raised the hood on the relatively clean black cloak I'd dawned on my way out and walked on slowly. It was time for me to resign from the Alley Bucks. I was going to make something of myself.
I was going to make Dad proud of me.