Fallout: Equestria - Benchmark

Who knew tables could make such good pillows? I sure as hell didn’t, at least not until this morning, when I dragged myself into what constituted as this town’s Saloon and collapsed into the nearest seat. Ember was talking beside me, something about caps and a job, probably important. I was too tired to care. My head ached, actually my whole body ached and it hurt, unsurprisingly. Did I mention I was fucking tired?

I should probably explain how I’d gotten myself into this state, it’s a pretty long story and I can’t remember all of it. So I’ll just fill you in on the most important details that I can remember.

It started with a simple fetch and return job. I say simple because that’s how the guy that gave it to us put it. But, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, fetching “Just a silly little book that two capable merc-mares, like yourselves, should find easy to retrieve!” turned out to be a lot harder than it sounded…

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“Are we lost?” Ember inquired behind me as we trudged along the same small riverbank that we must have gone past at least twice in the past hour. We had been on the hoof for the better part of a day and the sun was starting to get low, above the thin cloud cover.

“Yes.” I replied flatly. It was the third time she had asked that, at first I denied it, hoping that she wouldn’t press the issue and that we would find our way eventually. But she didn’t, so when she asked again I simply dropped the act and told her straight. Yes, we were lost.

The problem wasn’t that we didn’t know where we were going, or even that we didn’t have a map, the problem was that between us and our destination were miles and miles of dry rocks, dust and canyons, that all looked the same and provided no discernable landmarks to navigate by. Despite this my Pipbuck (well Ember’s Pipbuck technically, but I was the one who was wearing it) told us we were in a place called “The Macintosh hills.”

In theory our goal was somewhere in the area, but the stallion who had given us the job has neglected to give us any info other than “Its in a small hut in the Macintosh Hills, I’m sure it will be easy to find, it’s just by a large pile of rocks at the end of a gully.” which was very helpful, or would have been if the Macintosh Hills weren’t fucking massive, and didn’t all look the fucking same. As I’m sure you can tell, I was starting to get irritable.

After passing the same amusingly phallic shaped rock a few times the joke was starting to wear thin. I was getting more annoyed, Ember’s mood wasn’t too good either.

“He said a hut right?” She grumbled.
“Yes, by some rocks.” I replied evenly, gesturing to the countless stony masses around us. She sighed and continued. “So, like… wouldn’t it be somewhere near water? Its kind of a desert out here.” She had a point, but there was just one problem. “Do you see any water? This river’s been dry for miles” There was a pause. “No, but like, the river can’t be dry everywhere, and anyone who lived here before the war would need water, which is probably by the river somewhere. All we gotta do is follow it until-”

A shot rang out in the distance. “What was that?” Ember asked. I gave her a dry look, which was about the only kind of look I could manage in this heat. “A gun.” She returned my look and opened her mouth to counter but I cut her off. “Which means ponies, which could mean someone who can direct us.” I turned and headed towards where the shot had come from. Ember fell in beside me, matching my pace.

“What if they aren’t very friendly?” She asked, panting slightly. Her smaller frame was giving her trouble matching my speed, especially in the heat. I’d have to make sure she got a proper rest tonight, which probably meant me taking watch duty for the second night in a row. But if it meant keeping her from passing out in the middle of a desert I wasn’t going to complain. “If they look like trouble we won’t go up to them, besides if it’s raiders or something there would be more shots.” My logic wasn’t particularly sound, I know, but we were both too hot and bothered to press the issue, or, for that matter, to continue the conversation.

You’d think that the sky being covered by a blanket of clouds would lead to a desert like this being cooler, and i'm sure compared to what it was before the clouds it was. The problem was that the clouds had never been very thick, for what ever reason, around the macintosh hills, which led to uncomfortably humid summers and dismal, cold winters. It also meant that in the summer months it rarely rained, which just made it worse for any poor soul out on a hiking trip. Walking through it had been bad enough but it turned out trotting was even worse, who’d have guessed? Soon we had to stop to catch our breath and take a drink, which lead to another problem, water.

“Uh… Bench? How much water you got?” Ember lifted a rather light looking canteen in her magic. “I’m sorta out…” I floated my own canteen to my ear and gave it a light shake. It was barely half full. We had started the journey with several bottles of water each with the canteens as backup. If we were out of water we were in trouble. And that meant getting to whoever had fired that shot might be our only chance of survival. Which was a cheery thought.

Wordlessly I floated my canteen over to Ember and slung it around her neck. Before she could protest I turned and continued walking. I knew she wasn’t happy about it, but we both knew that protesting wouldn’t get her anywhere. We carried on walking in silence.

After about fifteen minutes we reached a small gully that was flanked by large, reddish boulders. I motioned to ember to stay low behind me as I cautiously peered down into it. At first I couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary, it was the same colour as the rest of the dusty soil and boulders, rusty orange with the occasional grey rock.

On my second pass I spotted a dark patch a little way along the gully floor. It seemed like it was emanating from what I first took to be another rock, but it was different than the others. Instead of rusty brown it was a grayish beige and I could just make out a streak of colour on one end that could be a tail.

I turned to Ember. “Looks like a body.” She frowned and peered over my shoulder. “We should take a closer look, they could be still alive” She had a point. I took another cautious look towards it. It could have just been a heat haze, but I almost thought I could see it breathing.

“lets see if we can get a little closer… stay quiet and low, ok?” I gave Ember a serious look. It was entirely possible that this was a trap, an injured pony in the middle of a large trench with no one else in sight? Maybe I was just paranoid, but this had a lot of potential for an ambush.

We crept along the top of the ridge until it evened out enough for us to slip down into it. The gully was a few hundred meters long, and curved slightly. From where we were we couldn’t see the body, but we knew where it was. We kept low and slipped from boulder to boulder until we were close enough to get a better look at it.
Sure enough it was a pony, lying in a pool of his or her own blood. The soil around them was a dark brown from where it had soaked in.
Where they lay they had their back to us, so it was hard to tell their gender. There was a large hole in their flank that was still bleeding slowly. From where we were we could see that they were still breathing, though it was very slow and uneven.

I felt Ember looking at me as I scanned the rest of the gully. There was still no one else in sight. “We gotta help them!” ember whispered franticly, opening her saddlebags. I didn’t have to look to tell what her face was like; I already knew the look she was giving me. It was the ‘I don’t care what you say I’m doing it anyway’ look. I sighed and turned to her as she began to search her bags for bandages. “We cant just run over there, there might be-“ I stopped abruptly as I spotted something moving on the lip of the gully above us.

Wordlessly I grabbed ember and pulled her further behind the rock we were hiding behind. She was smart enough not to protest, and instead kept her head down as I drew my pistol. My eyes were locked on the ridge above, scanning it for even the slightest movement.
I froze as my eyes locked with another pair, peering over the ridge. For the briefest of moments we stared each other down before the other pair’s owner quickly darted their head back out of sight.

I felt the sudden urge to bolt, but suppressed it. Years in the wasteland had taught me to keep cool in situations like this, but I couldn’t deny that I was a little freaked. “What is it?” Ember whispered as she drew her shotgun, it was old and well used, Both barrels had countless dings and dents and one of the hammers was stiff, but it had saved her life countless times and was probably about to save it again.

“Come on!” I said as I made a break for the way we had come. She kept pace as we rounded the bend and made a B-line for the slope we had come down. I heard hooves on the dry earth above us and increased my pace. The last thing we needed was to be cornered here, with barely any cover and nowhere to run but back.

“GATCHA!” A raspy voice shrieked as something leaped down in front of us, It was a unicorn, he had a rusty revolver and was dressed in ragged barding with random bits of wood and metal stuck to it that I think were supposed to constitute as amour. They didn’t do a very good job. Ember’s shotgun barked as one of its barrels spat its contents into his skull, turning it into a fine red mist, as the other members of the raiding party slid down to attack us.

An earth pony with a spiked helmet charged at me with her head lowered, screaming something about feeding me my spleen, or something. What ever it was I didn’t care as I opened fire putting two rounds in her chest, before diving to the side. Her body thumped wetly against the side of the gully, propelled by its remaining momentum, as I turned to face the other two raiders. There was another unicorn, brandishing a bat with a few nails in it, the other was an earth pony, holding what looked like a meat cleaver in his mouth.

He lunged at Ember, flailing his head wildly in an attempt to slash at her. She tried to bring her shotgun round to get a shot on him, but his friend with the bat knocked it aside. Both leaped at her in unison as I brought up my pistol.

Time seemed to slow as I took aim at the unicorn. My shot hit him in the temple and his head snapped to the left as his corpse crumpled in front of his comrade, tripping him and sending him tumbling. He hit the ground hard, dropping his meat cleaver. He stumbled to his hooves, turning around to lunge at Ember again.

Her shotgun barked a second time. Her aim was off, but she still caught him in the leg, taking most of it off. He fell to the dirt and screamed. “FUUCK! YOU BITCH! FUCK YOU!” He roared, clutching his crippled leg. Ember’s horn lit up and glowed brightly, a brilliant, methane blue aura surrounding it. The raider ignored it and kept screaming. “I’M GONNA FUCK YOU WITH YOUR OWN HORN!” It flared as a gout of flame spat from the end, engulfing the screaming pony. His words became screams as he burned, thrashing and rolling in the dirt as he desperately tried to put himself out. His curses quickly becoming screams and gasps.

Ember watched silently as he rolled around, fruitlessly trying to extinguish the magical flames. “Ember…” My voice seemed to break her trance, and with it the spell. The flames surrounding the stallion vanished and he curled into a ball. She stared at him in shock for a few moments, before taking a step back. “Ember, look at me.” Her eyes snapped back to mine. “You ok?” It was a stupid question but it was enough to break her trance fully. “I, uh… Y-yeah I’m fine”

She gulped and sat down, her eyes averted from the still writhing raider. I raised my gun and put a bullet in his head, finishing him quickly. I looked back to Her. She didn’t look good. It was always the same when she used her talent against another pony. It almost seemed like she didn’t have all the control over it that she should. But I would discuss it later, at times like these it was best to distract her, give her something else to think about and let her calm down. “Come on” I said, holstering my gun and gesturing to the gully.
She nodded and followed me as I made my way back along it, towards the injured pony.

When we reached them, we found that she was a mare, and that she was in a very bad way. She had been shot in the leg and had lost a lot of blood. Dark spots in the dust indicated that she must have limped her way into the gully before collapsing here from blood loss or exhaustion, probably both.

Ember pulled out some bandages while I uncorked a healing potion. Hopefully we were in time, she was still breathing, which was a plus but her breaths were painfully slow. I wasn’t a medical pony but I was sure she wouldn’t be able to walk her way out of here, even with a few potions inside her. This was not going to be easy.

“Looks like we have two options.” I mumbled as Ember began to bind the mare’s leg with a length of bandage. “We can give her a potion and leave her in some shade and hope she wakes up...” Ember scowled, I knew she wouldn’t like that suggestion. “Or we somehow drag her to the nearest town and hope they have a doctor, and are friendly.” We sat in silence for a while, assessing our options. Ember set about dressing the mare’s leg and eventually spoke up. “We could try to help her ourselves.” She looked up at me, her eyes betraying the question. “Are you a doctor?” I asked sarcastically. She frowned again and looked back to the unconscious mare.

She was quite small, and had some kind of device as her cutie mark. I wasn’t sure what it was, so Ember was even less likely to know. She had barely any gear, I assumed the raider’s had taken it at first, but all they had were their barding, their weapons and a rusty canteen each, which were as good as empty. They weren’t, but there was no way we were drinking from a raider’s canteen, besides the obvious ew factor we didn’t know if they had added anything else to their water, or if it was even clean in the first place.

The little mare didn’t have a canteen of her own, which may have factored into her unconsciousness. Wounded in the desert, with no water and raiders on her tail? Luck was obviously not one of her strongest traits.

Ember was almost finished bandaging so I uncorked the healing potion I had on me and gently pored some over the bandages. I then floated the potion over to ember so she could give it to the mare to drink while I held her up. Propping her against the wall of the gully we started to poor some down her throat and eventually we managed to feed her about half of the potion, it was slow going, but at least she was drinking it.

The sun was beginning to set by the time we made camp. We had opted to care for her ourselves, which wouldn’t have been so bad if we knew what we were doing, but the reality was that all we had going for us in terms of medical knowledge was basic first aid. However, we realized it was either this or leaving her to die, something Ember wouldn’t let me do even if I wanted to. So our hooves were tied, this mare’s life was now our responsibility, at least until she woke up.

We would have made a fire but the only thing around that we could burn were raider corpses, and I wasn’t about to remind Ember of her episode earlier, so we opted not to. We huddled up close to the side of the gully, wrapped in an old blanket that comprised our usual sleeping arrangements. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed, but it was all we could carry with us without a cart, and neither of us was really strong enough to pull one anyway.

Soon I felt Ember’s head gently rest against my shoulder as she slept. I gave her a gentle nuzzle and rested my own head against the rocky wall behind me. We had used our other blanket to cover the injured mare, who’s breathing had improved though she was still unconscious. We had given her the last of our water, which had seemed to help. Tomorrow we would have to find a town, otherwise we were toast, probably literally in the desert’s heat.

I pushed the thought from my mind and tried to look at the positives. We were alive, which was good. We had fended off three raiders, which may not have been the worst things to fight, but never the less could have killed us. I looked back down at Ember. Her faded scarlet mane had fallen over her face, reminding me of the way she used to wear it. I smiled at the thought and gently brushed it aside. Those days were gone, but seeing her looking so peaceful reminded me that wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, she was all that mattered to me, and so long as I had her, I couldn’t want for anything else… well, besides a stiff drink when this was all over. I suppressed a chuckle at the thought and sat back.

After a while I felt my eyes getting heavy, and despite my rocky pillow, I soon found myself slowly drifting off to sleep.

I don’t remember my dream, and even if I did, it probably wasn’t very interesting. I do remember, however, that it was a nightmare and I woke from it rather abruptly, in a cold sweat.
I looked around me, checking for anything out of the ordinary. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep and I kicked myself for it. I was supposed to be keeping watch.

Sighing, I looked over to where ember and the other mare lay. Ember was still asleep, as was the other mare, though she seemed to have stirred in her sleep slightly. More importantly she was still alive. I gently slipped the blanket off of me. If I kept under it I might fall asleep again.

Though it was sweltering during the day, the desert was surprisingly cool after sunset. I looked up at the sky. I could tell from the bright patch in the clouds that it was around midnight. I stood up, stretched my legs and opened my bag. I rummaged around in it until I found what I was looking for. I grinned as I floated it out. It was a small piece of wood, about the size of a matchbox.
It was mahogany, at least I was pretty sure it was, It had come from an old broken desk in a ruined office building a few months before.
One side was blank and flat where I had painstakingly scraped it smooth with my knife. The other side was much the same, however it bore the beginnings of a carving I’d started. It was a picture of embers cutie mark, a burst of flame and a few sparks. I had completed most of the flame, and now I had some time to kill I figured I could complete at least this side.

In time I would carve my own cutie mark into the other side and perhaps I’d shape it into a heart as a gift for ember. What ever I was going to do with it didn’t really matter though. I was only really making it to alleviate my boredom.
I slipped a knife from its sheath on my belt and began the painstaking process of carving the little trinket.
I enjoyed making things from wood, it was, after all the reason I got my cutie mark in the first place, just about every bare wooden surface in my old hut had designs carved into them, sometimes several times over. But that was the past, old projects that weren’t worth worrying about now.

The hours seemed to slip by without my notice and by morning I had indeed shaped the little trinket into a heart. I had finished the carving on both sides and was just drilling a hole in it when Ember woke up. Hastily I slipped it into a pocket on my barding and sheathed the knife.

She blinked and covered her eyes as she sat up and yawned. She sat back and sighed. “What time is it?” she asked, as she fought to keep her eyes from closing again. I glanced at the Pipbuck “4:03” I said quietly, looking over to who I guess was our patient. She was still unconscious, of course. If she didn’t wake up soon one of us would have to carry her, that one most likely being me.

Ember shook herself, and slowly stood up, stretched and lay down again, wrapping the blanket back around herself. I shook my head. She definitely wasn’t a morning pony. Left to her own devices she would probably sleep all day, but of course we couldn’t afford such a luxury, at least not very often.

My attention was quickly drawn to the wounded mare as she stirred slightly. I quietly made my way over to her. She groaned and fidgeted slightly, one of her hind legs kicking the air lazily. Well, she was defiantly recovering, which was good. What wasn’t so good was that she was probably having a nightmare, or a particularly active dream, which wouldn’t help things if she woke up suddenly with a pair of strangers next to her.
I was probably over thinking it though, and after a while though she stopped fidgeting and turned over, pulling the blanket to cover her better. I sighed and returned to my project, though I now kept a closer eye on her, just incase.

A few hours later the sun had risen above the clouds and light was beginning to creep back into the wasteland. Ember had finally woken up and was busying herself with making breakfast. Or rather burning it. You see, Embershine is very good at starting fires, as the picture on her flank proves. The only problem is that she is a little too good. She had been getting better and managing it recently, but this morning she just wasn’t with it.

After the fifth puff of sparks and string of profanity I offered to give her a hoof… or horn in my case. Her problem was that she was trying to hold the pot over the fire while keeping the flames at a proper heat, since we didn’t really have any decent fuel they were fed solely by Ember’s magic. The problem she faced was that focusing on both the jug and keeping the flames lit wasn’t the easiest task, casting two spells at once is like trying to count to ten and say the alphabet at exactly the same time in your head. I was amazed how some unicorns could have up to 5 spells going at once, that’s some serious multitasking. But I’m getting off topic.

“Let me hold it for you” I said gently, enveloping the old saucepan in my own magical glow. Ember huffed, but relented, focusing fully on keeping the fire at the optimum temperature. Soon with out powers combined we were able to heat up the soup we had packed for the journey. Ember readied two bowls and I floated the pot over.
I was just starting to poor some soup into the first one when we heard a groan from the direction of the wounded mare. She was waking up.

Hastily I set down the hot saucepan and motioned to Ember to be quiet. Cautiously went over to her as she opened her eyes. She groaned again, blinking, before raising her head slightly to look around. As soon as she saw me she yelped, falling back against the wall of the gully. She instantly regretted it as her head throbbed. She groaned, clutching at her head for a few seconds, before trying to back away more.

I tried to think of something to say to calm her down, but my mind was painfully blank. My mouth worked wordlessly for a moment before I finally found my voice. “Its ok! Don’t be afraid we’re uh… we’re friends” Thinking back on it, I probably could have said something better, or at least sounded more confident. Fortunately it did seem to calm her a little as she noticed her bandage.

She slumped against the wall as she was hit by another wave of dizziness. Ember and I both exchanged a quick glance before I quickly came to her aid, gently propping her up. She slumped as soon as she felt my support. Evidently she was still pretty weak. I helped her lay back down on the blanket and propped her head on my pack.

“W-where am I, whats going on” she whimpered weakly. I caught Ember’s eye and motioned to the soup. She nodded and quickly pored some into the half full bowl and passed it to me. I set it down next to me and gently felt her forehead. She had a fever and her fur was clammy. She whimpered as I gently put my hoof on hers. “No need to worry about that now.” I said tenderly “Just rest.” She shivered slightly and closed her eyes. “P-please don’t hurt me.” She almost whispered, as I placed another reassuring hoof on hers. “We won’t, I promise”
I whispered, gently stroking her forehead again to comfort her. She gave an almost unperceivable nod before relaxing slightly.

I stayed by her side until she fell asleep again. Due to her fever I felt it unwise to cover her in the blanket, not that it would make much difference by midday. Our soup had gone cold, but ember could heat it up again so we weren’t too worried.
What we were worried about, however, was what we were going to do about her.

“How far away is Girders?” Ember asked, motioning to my Pipbuck. “Can we get her there before midday?” I looked at the map and shook my head. “No, too far.”
“What if we run?” She asked, a slightly urgent tone in her voice. She knew as well as I did that we would need to get this mare to a doctor, urgently now that we knew she had a fever. Our problem was of course the same one we had been having yesterday: The desert. “What, run ten miles with her on my back? You can’t even manage a mile without your packs.” It sounded harsh to say, but it was true. Ember huffed. “Well what do you suggest we do?” I sighed and stood up. “Well I guess there’s only one thing we can do: Walk.”

She gave me an “are you serious” look. “We can’t do anything else Ember.” I said flatly. “We can’t get to girders by midday even if we run and running will only kill us quicker. This way it will be hard, but at least it’s possible.” Ember scowled. “What if she doesn’t make it” She glanced over to the sleeping mare. I sighed and shook my head. “Then there’s nothing we can do.”
She opened her mouth to protest but I continued. “We can only do so much, Ember. If she survives the journey, hell if we survive the journey we can get her to the doctor and he can help her.” I gave her a stern look. “But we can only do that if we stop arguing and get going now.” She opened her mouth for a few moments before shutting it and scowling again. “Fine.”

She went over to her saddlebags and began strapping them on, while I went to get our patient. She was out cold so gently hoisting her onto my back was relatively easy, I just hoped she wouldn’t throw up on me once we got moving.
Seeing as I was already burdened with an unconscious pony, ember took my pack along with her own.

After checking that we had everything we headed back up the gully. The slope we had slid down originally was too steep to climb with our heavy loads, forcing us to walk a little further along it until we gradually made it to higher ground.

We didn’t pay the raider corpses much attention, Ember outright ignored them. I however spared them a quick glance as we passed and noticed that there were only two bodies. Had we killed the all? The stallion ember had burned was dead for sure, a bullet to the head will do that to you. I realized that the helmeted mare must have survived, and as I came to that conclusion I noticed a trail of blood leaving back up the slope.
I doubted the mare would pose us any threat, even if she was still alive, which was unlikely. My guess was that she had crawled out of the gully, collapsed somewhere and bled out. I shook myself, banishing the thought, we had more important things to think about.

Once we were out of the gully I set a marker on the Pipbuck for us to follow. It wasn’t the most detailed of navigational aids, but at least it showed us the right direction to go in. We set off towards it at a fairly brisk pace. We were aiming to cover as much ground as possible before midday.

I flicked the Pipbuck’s radio on to give us something to listen to while we walked. After a quick burst of static our ears were greeted by the soft voice of some pony I hadn’t heard before. Ember’s ears pricked up too as the song played. The radio rarely got any new music, usually repeating the same songs over and over. Pre war records were exceedingly rare and wasteland musicians were just as sparse.

Soon the song reached its climax and was replaced by the familiar voice of the DJ. “Well wasn’t that beautiful, my little fillies and colts? A song from sapphire shores! Hidden away for over two hundred years, until now! Thanks again to that little pony who found it for me, we all owe you a big one!” He paused and there was a ruffling of papers. “Now, its time to get riiight into the news!” Ember cringed. She hated it when he said that, I found it pretty annoying too.

“My little birdies over in bucklyn tell me that they’re seeing more Steel Ranger activity than normal, seems those Buckets-Of-Bolts are up to something so it’s a good idea to steer clear of the area for now, especially if you have any nice shiny tech they may want to steal- I mean ‘confiscate’.” The DJ wasn’t too big a fan of the Steel Rangers. I suspected that he had probably had run-ins with them before. Radio broadcasting equipment was no doubt something they would want to get hold of.

Ember muttered something under her breath. I couldn’t catch most of it but it was probably something vulgar. What ever she said I probably agreed, we had our own reason to hate the Steel Rangers.

The rest of the news wasn’t of much note, and ended with the DJ’s usual survival tip, today’s was to “stay hydrated with clean, un-irradiated water.” Ironic, considering that we were lacking exactly that. The DJ’s little PSA had reminded my just how thirsty I was. Ember huffed, no doubt being reminded of her own thirst.

The next few hours were pretty miserable. The day was getting hotter and the music got so repetitive that eventually we decided we would walk in silence, as neither of us was in a particularly chatty mood.
Despite our lack of water and poor moods we had covered a lot of ground, and by midday we were making good time. “How much longer?” Ember huffed, she had fallen behind slightly and was having trouble keeping up. I glanced at my Pipbuck. “About another hour.” I replied. I wasn’t fairing much better, my pace had also slowed and I had a headache. I was also Painfully aware that we hadn’t even completed the job we had gone into the desert to do in the first place, which meant we would have to go back at some point. As if my mood couldn’t get any worse.

Despite the horrendous conditions we soldiered on, and after another two hours we finally reached the bustling town of Girders. It was a pretty big town, as far as wasteland settlements go. It was one of the few places in the Macintosh hills that had a clean water source. No one was quite sure where it came from, only the mayor knew, and she kept it a closely guarded secret. There were rumours that the town had a water talisman, though no one knew for sure. All anyone did know for sure was that if you wanted clean water you had to come to Girders.

A green maned guard approached us as we went up to the gate. “Well now, back so soon ladies?” He raised an eyebrow as he spotted my luggage. “And with a friend too!” I sighed and looked up at him grumpily. “Just let us in Frizzle, I’m not in the mood for small talk.” He recoiled in mock offence and pouted. “Oh fine, seeing as you asked so nicely.” He giggled and bounced over to the gate. I wasn’t sure how he could bounce in this heat, but then again it was Frizzle.

After a few moments there was a rattling sound as the gate was slid open enough for us to enter. Frizzle beamed at us. “Welcome back to Girders ladies! I hope you enjoy your stay!” We ignored him and made a B-line for the clinic. Normally I would humour him and maybe even crack a joke or two, but I was hot, thirsty and my head hurt so I really wasn’t in any mood to do so.

The clinic was conveniently placed next to the saloon, so Ember agreed to go and refill our canteens while I spoke to the doctor. The clinic door creaked as I entered. Beds took up one half of the room, while the other had a multitude of shelves and racks with all manner of strange medical instruments and bottles of what I assumed to be remedies.

There was the sound of a breaking bottle and a muffled string of profanity as the doctor poked his head out from behind one of the tall shelves and scowled. “The fuck’ you want now?” He growled, scooping up the remains of the vodka bottle he had knocked from the shelf. He spotted the mare on my back and sighed.

“Wonderful.”

As I’m sure you noticed, Doctor Vapour wasn’t a particularly personable pony, in fact he was often down right rude. It was a popular little joke among the caravans and residents of Girders that the only ‘patience’ he had were the ones that came to be patched up. This usually turned out to be true, as he was almost always in a permanent state of grumpiness. Today was no exception.

“Put her on the bed and get out.” He grumbled, waddling back over to his shelves. He grabbed some medical gear I didn’t recognise and a healing potion. He turned and glowered at me. “Are you deaf? Get out and let me treat my patient.” I was all too happy to oblige, noting that he hadn't mentioned payment... yet.

The sun was getting low behind the clouds as I stepped out into the dusty street. I took a deep breath and stretched. For such a small mare she got awfully heavy, especially towards the end of out journey. My back and legs ached, and I felt like I could sleep for a week. I managed to build up the will power to trudge my way to the saloon.

Pushing the door open with my face I was greeted with the familiar aroma of a pony saloon. It was the musky smell of unwashed ponies, punctuated with the heady scents of various boozes. It was pretty full today, though a few tables remained empty. Ember had graciously got us one close to the door, which meant I didn’t have to walk much further to collapse into a seat, and rest my head against the cool table. Ember started talking beside me, something about caps and a job, probably important. I was too tired to care.

Footnote: Level up!

Level 8.

Perk gained: Long Haul: Traveling long distances with heavy loads has become a little easier, as you gain a +1 boost to Endurance whenever you are over-encumbered!