Looking down the wrong well
“Stupid hot day. Augh.” Quake trudged towards a well outside the walls of a dilapidated, smelly little clump of lean-tos he found himself at. Four days out of what was left of Ponyville and, according to a map tucked into his barding, two days left before he was hopefully somewhere near Junction R-7. At least, that’s where he thought he was going.
Quake had traded a few bits for a hand drawn map that the trader swore up and down on his life that he had sketched it from, “A genuine PipBuck 3000! Darndest contraption I’ve ever seen. A miracle you can wear on your leg and tells you all sorts of things!” the trader said. Well, Quake was pretty sure now he was lost.
He stumbled upon this camp by chance two days ago. While the ponies were perfectly amicable, they seemed a bit clueless on directions or names of landmarks that Quake pointed out on the roughly scrawled bit of paper. The paper that promised would get him out of raider territory and into civilisation. The worthless piece of parchment not worth wiping his plot on, apparently.
The clouds had thinned just enough today to let true sunlight through, heating the air and making it humid and uncomfortable beneath his coat. Quake lifted a hoof to shield his eyes from the odd half-glare as he looked across the dirt road towards his target: a fresh well dug into the ground, the reason this group of ponies flocked to the runned down ruins of some forgotten hamlet between here and there. “At least there’s no radiation in this water. Yet,” he mumbled to himself. “Fuckin’ Rad-Away tastes horrible.” Like spoiled orange juice. With pulp. Blegh.
The blue unicorn ambled further on, reaching the pathetic well (really, a deep crevasse in the ground that was widened enough to drop a bucket down) and was levitating a bucket down to see about getting a drink when a voice called out from the heavens, “HOWDY Down there!”
Surprised, Quake dropped the bucket sad, half-hearted splash echoing up from the well. He wasn’t paying attention to the skies for company, who does? Especially with this kind of cloud cover that made looking up hurt.
“What do you want, pegasus?” Quake spat the last word out, squinting his eyes and casting a glance back upwards towards the glare filtering through the clouds.
This pegasus also blew dust and scattered debris up from hovering wingbeats. He was a mixture of sand and onyx shaded fur, smirking down at him with a ridiculously smug expression and brandishing a wooden pole tipped with a silver, spade shaped point. Quake grumbled to himself, he just wanted to get water and go lay down and wait out the heat of the day. Not deal with tourists waving sticks around in the air.
“That’s a mighty fine bit of barding ya got there, Yew-Knee-Corn,” the pegasus drawled. “Where’d your momma work up the bits to afford that? Haw!”
Quake’s eyes widened, then narrowed as he growled, his horn tingling and sparking with magic. His forehoof tore a furrow into the ground and his tail lashed swiftly from side to side. “Now you look here you overgrown pigeon–”
The pegasus cut him off with a guffaw. “Tenderhoof got himself all flustered already! Didja get tired of watching your mom have all the fun an’ wanted ta’ join in yerself?–WOO, colt!”
The pegasus barely dodged the first bolt of arcane energy Quake flung at him. With a half loop and a roll, he tore off into the wasteland. Quake galloped after him, firing bolt after bolt up at the pegasus. His blood boiled and sang in his veins as he called his magic and threw it at the loud mouthed pony.
The two edged away from the tiny blip of civilization, off the one real trail in the area and into open ground. Deadly ground where the more unsavory creatures dwelled. Quake didn’t bother to notice where he was being led, too occupied with the flying rat who managed to scrape him here and there with his spear and dodge his own attacks again and again. He chased the pegasus through the remains of what appeared to be a barn, down a gully full of cracked and broken barrels and fencing then finally over a short rise where, had Quake been paying attention, he could have seen Ponyville in the distance. He would have realized that he was still very much in raider and slaver territory, heading the wrong direction.
Minutes passed and Quake felt himself growing weary, sweat trickled under his fur and mane, but every time he was about to give up and turn around the pegasus would make a rude gesture or a snide comment and the unicorn would get angry all over again and start blasting shots up towards the dodging and weaving pegasi. Crackling and dripping with raw magic as Quake drove pulse after pulse of effort through the horn. Long past the point of self-preservation, the pegasi’s antics drove Quake to let fly with a final rapid fire barrage of bolts before his horn fizzled, glowed white hot for a heartbeat, then shattered.
The unicorn howled in pain, collapsing to his knees with his head bowed. His vision tunneled in agony he looked up cross eyed at what was left of his horn. A bloodied, jagged stump remained, sparking with uncontrolled magic. Groaning and cursing the pegasus who got the best of him, he tried to rise to his hoofs once more.
Quake heard more than felt the wet impact of something being driven into his back. His hind legs gave out beneath him, kicking up dust and obscuring the clouds and sun above as he collapsed to the ground.
The unicorn groaned and coughed, surprised to see blood splattering the ground. Then the pain hit, a burning wave rolling through his guts and belly as the spear shifted inside him. He tried to kick and roll but his bottom half was leaden. A lump of icy panic gripped his pounding heart as he realized he couldn’t move his hind legs or feel anything below his belly. Only the rolling, burning pain of the blasted pegasi’s spear.
All thoughts of defiance or fight left the unicorn, “Oh Celestia no! P-please no!” he begged. The pegasus laughed, twisting the spear and pushing it the rest of the way through the unicorn’s side with a wet tearing sound.
Quake screamed long and loud before dissolving into wet coughing. The pegasus jerked the spear to the side, tearing the wound wider. A raw, gurgling scream tore from the unicorn as more blood splattered the ground and foamed in his mouth, bubbling up in the back of his throat with each forced breath. He managed to clop the ground with a forehoof, earning another twist of the spear. The pegasus shoved again, bracing a hoof against Quake’s side and pushing the spear into the ground, effectively skewering the unicorn into place.
“Perfect colt, just perfect. Good screamin’ like that’ll be sure to attract someone. I have the perfect bait, an’ now I can try that new rifle I got. Relax tenderhoof, ya did good. Ah! Someone’s coming. Hyah!”
Quake barely registered the gust of wind blown up from the pegasus’s wings as he took to the sky again. The back of his throat filled with blood, he couldn’t breathe or swallow past it anymore. He couldn’t feel his legs or drag himself, he couldn’t even wave off the other pony he could see through dimmed vision galloping towards him.
His last moments beheld the sight of the other pony’s head snapping to the side. Gore, bone and blood misted into the air, followed by the mighty thundercrack of the pegasi’s rifle echoing into the expanse of ruins and rolling hills. Quake’s feeble squirming and gurgling slowed, then stopped, eyes glazing over. Forever gazing out into the terrible expanse of the Equestrian wasteland.