“You need to know three things before we wander in there. First, the Crusader was a kid. Almost a stallion, but mostly a kid. He always complained when I told him that, but being a stallion is more than age and it’s more than having the heart. Second, you may already know this, but Lunangrad is both similar and completely different from the rest of the Wasteland. The similarities are mundane and don’t matter, but the differences are deep and all hidden away, guarded by things scarier than guns. Third? Third is that the kid was the smartest pony I ever knew, but also the stupidest.”

Mosaic was a beautiful town, despite being quite literally a hole in the ground. If I had not been raised in the belly of this station, I never would have believed that an old metro stop could have been anything but rundown and bleak, but the ponies of Mosaic have created a settlement which is the height of beauty. Even as they live in relative ascetic simplicity, their walls brim with art and their common areas are filled with iconography of the Goddesses. Everything is orderly and well-maintained. Lights hang here and there in the commons, shining in bulbs recovered from the urban tangle.

In this isolated settlement at the edge of the city, one found a peculiar sort of pony. They kept to themselves beyond even the expected insularity of metro residents. Mosaic was the last bastion of the Goddesses, or so its residents believed. Even if the world had fallen to unrighteousness, they would hold fast. I had my own opinions on that, but I let it be. For what it was worth, they seemed to believe it all sincerely.

There were worse places to grow up, I suppose.

I found Sparkler in the commons, and she was as beautiful as ever. She waved at me and I hurried over.

“Hey, Balm,” she said. I beamed at her. Sparkler was the most beautiful filly in Mosaic, and nopony would deny that—and that isn’t just my opinion. It’s the common one, agreed upon across the normal divides of public sentiment here in our cozy town.

“Hey, Sparks. Haven’t seen you in awhile! How’ve you been?”

“You saw me yesterday, dumb butt.”

“Well, yes, that is technically accurate…”

She rolled her eyes. “You really need to get you some friends. You know, besides me. I can’t be with you all the time. I have to sleep eventually!”

“I do have friends. Lots.”

To be fair, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried. It was just more difficult than she made it out to be. I have disadvantages that Sparkler does not, and she has advantages far beyond anything I’ll ever claim. Not all of us can be beautiful or have a wonderful voice. Or be a unicorn with an actual talent. And only I have to be from a disreputable place.

She just chuckled and moved on. “Got any plans?”

“Same as yours,” I said, and looked through my right saddlebag. I pulled out the duty roster and then let go as I felt the tingle of her magic envelope the flyer.

“Oh. Yeah, that’s where I’m headed. I didn’t see your name on there before,” she said, and looked at me for a moment. I smiled at her again.

“Hard to believe, I know, but I actually asked for today instead of tomorrow before I knew you were on this shift.”

“It’s a little hard to believe, yeah.” She sighed, and then shook her head with a little smile. “Come on, clingy. Maybe we’ll find you a friend in the tunnels.”

“Hopefully one who does not use magic to cheat,” I replied. She rolled the flyer up into a little flying paper baton and swatted me. I laughed but lightly skipped aside. Avoiding injury was perhaps my only talent. Considering my father’s work, it was ironic at best.

In Mosaic, everypony pitched in for the good of the settlement. We survived on the salvage that came from the old maintenance tunnels and the Warrens below them. What little we could scrounge from below and from the surface is funneled back into buying food from the Authority. What they wouldn’t buy, we sold to the few merchants who bother coming this far down the river. Only two or three ever wander into Mosaic, except perhaps to rest. Every few years, a trader from down south arrived and found that the nearest settlement with a warm bed was ours. Those were the best kind of visitors—they always brought news (much of it awful, but news is news) and the caps they spent fund our continued peace.

Because the warrens and the tunnels were dangerous, nopony had to go down into them more than once a month unless they volunteer, and even then the Godspeakers are loathe to send a pony into the darkness more than twice in a month. They reward bravery, not stupidity, and certainly not suicide. Recklessness is folly, and folly is sin in the eyes of the Goddesses. So it goes.

Another reason, perhaps, to cling so close to Sparkler: she didn’t care that I was Authority. This meant she didn’t care that I was skeptical at best about the divinity of the old rulers of Equestria. I knew enough to make it not so much a certainty as a healthy skepticism, but even a shred of doubt was usually enough to trouble a Mosaic pony.

We left the commons behind, headed down towards the old rails. Ponies lived in the bodies of the ancient trains now, and over the years they too had been built over and painted. A mare hanging up laundry on a line between two train bodies saw us and waved. We waved back.

From the rails we skipped through the market and past the always open maintenance door that led down into the rest of the town.

In the commons and market, there was natural light from the great doorway mixed with warm white and yellow. But through the great bulkhead door that led down beneath the city itself, the light changed. This hallway was bathed in a sickly green and was only big enough for a single pony on a diet to squeeze through. It was like a great green throat that was swallowing you.

I shivered, and was glad when Sparkler didn’t seem to notice as she walked in front of me.

Except she spoke softly as we came to the end of the hallway, where the path branched off in two directions. The stairway to the left led up to the dormitories and storage rooms and if you kept going up eventually you got to the old world maintenance offices. To the right was a stairway that meandered down into the deeps.

“Staring where you’re not supposed to, or does it still bother you?”

I know my face is flushed. “It never bothered me.”

“Bullshit, Balmie,” she says. Her voice was quiet, but she didn’t say anything else. She just looked back at me and then stepped off into the darkness as the rest of her seemed to slide out of the green light. I ground my teeth and followed.

The stairway downwards was dark but not impossibly so. There were lights along it and the green glow from behind us. Below there was only the Workshop, and then the winding dark ways, and neither of those had much light to spare. Power was a blessing of the Goddess, yes, but it was as expensive as it was vital to survival in Lunangrad.

The Workshop below was actually not a part of the original metro system at all. Mosaic is down the street from one of the city’s maintenance offices, and like just about everything else, they built down instead of out or up. I guessed it had been used for storage, but who could be sure? Maybe it was an old locker room. It was neither now—it was a storehouse for anything that needed to be cut open or disarmed before being carried out of the warrens.

We weren’t late, but after a quick headcount, I knew we were the last ones to arrive. I sighed and found the overseer so I could give him my duty token.

Salt Lick raised his eyebrows at me—or us, I wasn’t sure—and then sighed. “Well, there you are. Taking your father’s shifts.”

“Yes sir,” I said. I kept my eyes on his and offered him the token.

“They did tell you that you didn’t have to do this, yes? Your father—“

“Is dead,” I said and swallowed. “Please take my token, sir, so I can get ready.”

Salt Lick pursed his lips. I knew he had a point. I didn’t have to do this at all. Technically, I was sto;; a few months from my birthday, and so a few months from when my name enters the rotation. On top of that, the idea of filling in for a dead or injured loved one was respected in Mosaic but no one expected it of me for a lot of reasons. Most of those reasons were good reasons, honorable reasons. Some of them were not.

I was tired of the latter following me around.

He sighed. “Your dad was just as insistent during the Blight,” Salt Lick noted and looked away from me. “Almost the same words. Go on. You’ll be pairing with Sparkler, then?”

“As always,” she said, and chuckled. I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. I winced slightly, glad that I faced away from her.

Ponies walk on eggshells around me. If anyone says anything even vaguely about fathers or dads, they either backpedal hard or they just go quiet. And I get it. My father is gone. I understand that. Bloody hell, I know that people revered him and I’m not the only one missing him… but sometimes you just want ponies not to freeze up because they’re worried you’ll burst into tears. It would be nice to feel on the inside of the circle that was Mosaic.

Salt Lick took my duty token, and Sparkler and I waited with the others. There were some whispers, a few soft questions, a little gossip. I heard someone mention the spritebots being more active near the river, but not much else. Spritebots are interesting, if you don’t mind canned music. Rumor has it that they’re Enclave, the pegasi in the sky, but nopony has seen Enclave in Lunangrad in two centuries. For that matter, the cloud cover the tradesponies talk about covering the south doesn’t reach all the way here. The clouds are thick, yes, but we see the sun and the moon. They never left us.

Sparkler was digging through her bags for something. I sighed and think about Spritebots. I’d only seen two. I liked them, honestly. I enjoyed most things that fly.

I wish I could, myself.

Salt Lick checked the time on his little chrono and cleared his throat. “Alright. Let’s move. You all know the drill by now. Stay in pairs, don’t bunch up, don’t draw too much attention… don’t get hurt, please. Don’t be a hero, and don’t be a coward. It’s just a job.” He smiled at us and moved towards the lockers on the far wall. He opened them all and then turned back to us. “We have a few newer workers today. Four of you are kids… well,” he amended when Sparkler huffed, “Sort of. We’re not expecting miracles, alright? If you run into something bad, just run. Don’t go as far as the rest of us go. You’ve still got a lot to learn. Blessings of the Goddess.”

“Blessings of the Goddess,” we all murmured.

“Alright. Daylight and… ah, Rust, you two are first…”

Two by two, we received our equipment.

Salt Lick hooved over the folded up barding. As I fumbled with it, Sparkler had already taken hers with magic. I wish that I had magic—I wish a lot of things—but wishing takes time, and I have to take my light and the pistol.

The barding is a heavily modified radsuit. A long time ago, it was probably orange but now it’s faded to a saddish brown. The suit clings to the skin, so that you’re always feeling it hugging you tightly. Over the radsuit they’ve added padding, and some piecemeal metal armor plates. It’s terrible, frankly. Breathing feels strange… and that’s before the mask. I finished clipping the flashlight to my suit’s front when I looked up to see Salt Lick holding my mask out with a strange look on his face.

I took it, licking my lips. I hated the mask. I hated it so much. Anypony would. It’s tight and you couldn’t really adjust it very well and the glass is always foggy or scratched so you can’t see well and…

I slide the mask on my face. The earlier pairs are probably gone now.

“Ready?” Sparkler asked me. Her voice sounded strange, as if she were worried.

“Of yeah. Of course,” I said. I smiled at her before remembering that my smile was hidden by the rebreather. I lifted the mask so she can see me smile, but also so I coulde adjust the strap holding the little pistol to my chest, ready to be drawn. Wanted it to be easy to grab with my teeth if I had to.

She pursed her lips at me, but then her mask went down and so did mine, and then we were headed through the open hole in the wall that led towards the barricade. And past the barricade, the warrens began.

My mother was a warrior.

It’s not how you usually heard ponies living in Authority or Authority-protected station towns described. The Authority didn’t have warriors; it had soldiers. No warbands but squadrons and companies. Raiders have clans and raiding parties.

Mother was from highlander stock. Somehow, her own mother had come down from the mountains and had a foal in the streets. My mom didn’t remember why or how or where, only that her earliest memory was in an Authority orphanage. At least, that’s what she told me when I was very young. I’ve always thought there was more that she didn’t want to share.

But she was a warrior. She was a drifter who saved my father from a whole gang of raiders by herself just because he was in danger and then carried him all the way back to the nearest station town. She guarded Authority caravans and chased down slavers on the surface when I was young. She didn’t care that others saw her and shrank back, because she always had a smile for every situation and never seemed to worry.

She was a highlander, which meant she wasn’t… well. She wasn’t like everypony else.Thestral. Batpony. Whichever name you want, some say leatherwings of all things, but it doesn’t matter. She never cared. And she was comfortable in absolute darkness.

I am not a warrior, but I am comfortable in the dark. Just… not this particular dark. It was too much like the outside dark, where the... Where there are Things. Hell, it wasn’t the dark that scared me so much as it was what could be lurking around the corner.

Sparkler was ahead of me, trying to squeeze through a crack in the tunnel wall. I looked away, a little embarrassed at the idea of staring at her rear, but mostly it had been an hour at least and I felt like we were horribly exposed. The tunnel we had found in the warrens was hard, jagged rock, wet from some underground stream that we hadn’t found yet but probably would in a few moments. I hadn’t drawn the pistol. My mother yelled at me only once in the entirety of my life: when I was a foal I tried to touch her battle saddle.

Don’t touch a gun unless you’re going to use it!

“Hey… are you through yet?” I say, trying not to raise my voice.

“Hrm?”

I groan softly. “Are you through? I’m kind of a sitting duck here.”

“Ah, lighten up, Balm. It’s not like you’re gonna get torn to shreds by horrorterrors or eaten by raiders or anything. It’s just the warrens.”

“It’s just the warrens,” I groused. “Even the name sounds kind of ominous. Yes, let’s go down into the dark and wander around looking for trash. It’s not like it’s full of magic radiation and twisted abominations. Nothing frightening at all really.” I sniffed. “Just hurry, please.”

“I’m almost—there. Now lemme…”

She didn’t finish. I waited for a moment, and then turned around to find her gone. I crossed over to the crack and peered in. Faintly, I saw the beam of her flighlight as she worked it over thing from the side.

“Sparkler?”

“Holy… Goddesses, there’s so much down here. This is old! This is super old. Balm! Can you fit?”

I looked both ways down the yawning cavern’s way. There was, of course, no movement. I turned back to the hole and grinned. “I think so. Give me a bit.”

“Hurry! You gotta see this, for real!”

I squeezed through in half the time. My mother gave me two things, and one of them is a small, thin frame. I hate it, but occasionally it’s useful. This is one of those times.

“Ugh… hurry, slow pony,” she said, and I roll my eyes.

When I can got my light working and pointed in the right direction, I saw what caused the excitement.

The only way I could describe what little I could see was in terms like ancient and forgotten. This was not a cave at all, but a room, with flagstones for floor and columns for support. My light danced from column to column, seeing mostly broken walls and potshards between them. I advanced into the room, Sparkler hot on my heels, humming.

I tripped, but caught myself, dancing around the obstacle in the darkness. After a few heartpounding seconds, I regained enough balance to shine my chest light on the offending thing. An old… rock? No! Not just a rock. I leaned in, a huge smile blossoming on my face.

“Sparkler! I think this is a statue. Or was a statue or… Come see!” I tried to move it to see if I could identify the face… obviously, it had been a pony… the structure was enough to tell. What race? I sighed. “Bloody hell, can’t even tell if this is the face… Sparkler? Sparkler, you have a light spell, don’t you? I know it’s a bit chilly but…”

I stopped. The air was still. Sparkler hadn’t said a word since I squeezed through, had she? And I hadn’t… heard her move at all. I just assumed she had. I didn’t look up. I didn’t make any sudden movements. Very slowly, I dipped my chin and awkwardly took the pistol from its flimsy holster. It tasted awful, like ash and cold metal, and that’s what it was, wasn’t it? I tried to swallow to force the lump forming in my throat back down but I couldn’t. My whole body felt stiff.

Maybe it was something in the air. I didn’t know. I just knew that it was so very, very quiet. Unnaturally quiet.

I raised my head and looked the way I came, the gun sight in my eyes. My light showed nothing.

I was never a warrior. My mother was a warrior.

I tried to jump right on an impulse, spinning as I did so to see what was behind me. My light flashed over something huge just as I hit the hard ground. My shoulder took the majority of the fall but my head bounced and when it did I tried to squeeze on the gun so it wouldn’t fly out of my mouth—

And it ROARED.

The sound of it firing echoed off the close walls over and over again, and my ears were already ringing. I tried to get back up on my feet so I could meet whatever it was but Sparkler was on top of me, pinning me to the floor.

“Calm down! It’s me! Don’t shoot! It’s Sparkler! Balm? Balm?”

Only now do I realize that I’ve broken out into a cold sweat. My vision swims. In the half-light of the flashlights, hers and mine, I see only the suggestion of a face above me. Her light shines right into my eyes and then I feel something slap my face. The gun goes flying from my grip and I open my mouth to scream and then she is hugging me.

“Calm down! Calm down! There’s nothing here! It’s nothing. You had one of your… you had one of your attacks. It’s okay. Come back to me, alright? Balm? Balm?”

I try to breathe normally but I can’t. Because I see it behind her shoulder. I tried to look away but I felt like I couldn’t. My body wouldn’t respond. It felt like I had died and my body had given up on me, and yet my heart beat in my ear furiously, drowning out Sparkler’s voice. I was only dimly aware of her gripping me tighter, trying to talk me down.

A great statue… no. An idol. A terrible idol of something more reptilian than equine, six ponies high at least with an open mouth filled with stony teeth. A great horn sprouted from its head like a spear, and I could almost hear the sounds of ponies impaled upon it and I smelled their blood and it was so dark, so dar—

I recovered in the cavern outside the temple. When my legs worked, Sparkler had all but force me back through the crack before squeezing through herself, and then cast her light spell. The little shining ball of illumination now sat a hoof’s length from me, flickering slightly.

Again. It had happened again. I panicked, and I couldn’t stop panicking. It wasn’t always in the dark. Sometimes, if I lost control enough, it could happen in brightly lit places. It was hard to tell what would set it off because almost anything seemed capable of turning me from a clever creature into a sobbing, shivering animal.

“Up for some food?”

I look up. Sparkler is smiling at me with a packet of crisps floating its way over slowly. It meanders in its flight, first one way and then another, and with each little turn she makes a “whoosh” noise. I snort and then laugh. When it finally reaches me, I take it in both hooves.

When you’re an earth pony, some things are hard to open. You learned to make do. Mostly, this involved a lot of mechanics. Why did earth ponies make great technicians and mechanics? Because when opening a packet of chips takes more than two steps, you started figuring out how to do everything better because the alternative is madness. But even a weird earth pony like me could do this much. There’s a pop and then delicious salty potato goodness. I imagine I can taste a little bit of warm rad on it, keeping it nice and fresh or something. It actually does preserve things but… it’s complicated. Burying my nose in the bag and eating without an ounce of shame? Less complicated. So I stopped thinking about it.

“Do… do you wanna talk ‘bout it?”

I look up at her, bag of crisps still quite securely around my snout. She snorted and put a hoof over her mask before remembering it was still on.

Mine? It’s a miracle I hadn’t broken it, but as soon as she could, Sparkler ripped it off me so I didn’t choke myself trying to bite my way out. Masks or anything that covers the face are triggers, I think. Without testing the hypothesis, I can’t be sure, but I’m honestly not really up for testing it, scientific method be damned.

With every ounce of Authority dignity I had, I removed the bag from my face. “I’m not sure I do,” I said. “I thought there was something in the room, I saw the idol, I panicked. Beyond that…” I shrugged. “I’ve dwelt long enough on my infirmities. It gets tiring to remember how pathetic you are.”

She frowned. “That’s a bit harsh.”

“Reality is harsh,” I said, and then went back to eating.

After a moment, she sighed and then began to dig through her bag with magic. I shook out of my own saddlebags and pushed them over. I finished and spoke again. “If you’re taking stock,” I said, pointing down to my bags.

“They don’t expect as much from us, but I still want to be useful,” she said. Her voice seemed sadder, and I knew I had hurt her feelings by not wanting to talk. I was sorry for it. Very sorry, in fact. I just don’t know what I could say that wouldn’t feel either uncomfortable for both of us or drag up something I don’t want to talk about. And now that the moment was gone, I didn’t know how to fix it.

“Hey, Sparkler?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” I said, and laid my head down.

“Sure,” she said, her voice soft. “Now, the scrap electronics you found are decent… if we could find some energy cells, Spark Plug would be pretty happy.”

“I thought you found some earlier?”

“Nah. They were all used up. I poked at ‘em with my magic.”

I sighed. “Great. We’ve collected a lot of the edible lichen, though, right? It’s not impressive, but…”

“We’ll be fine,” she said, to cut the conversation off. I nodded. We were fine.

Salt Lick was not impressed. Scrap Electronics and some energy cells that probably could be recycled that we had dug out of a train that had fallen into the warrens and two whole pounds of the edible cave lichen that kept us healthy. It tasted bitter but it was nutrient rich, and it was a sort of radiation scrubber. A story about a spooky ruin. But the lichen was useful and the electronics would indeed make Spark Plug, the town’s engineer, happy indeed. He always needed scraps.

So with a nod and a little grunt, he gave us each a few caps and the daily ration of lichen-mix. The older stallions’ eyes lingered on me for a second longer than was normal and then he simply walked away. I shrugged it off, and followed Sparkler back upstairs into the station proper.

“So, got any plans for the day?” I asked with a smile. “I mean, I’m rather beat, but we could totally grab lunch down by the river. I’ve got some caps and I’m kinda in the mood for—“

“Not today,” she said, and then shrugged helplessly. “I’m a little busy today. But we can go later this week!”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry, Balm. Wait—no, don’t go today. Somepony down the road at Mondale came by when I was on my morning walk. There’s a raiding party nearby.”

I grimaced. “Oh, great. Won’t have another merchant for a while, then. That’s alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She left me with a side-hug and a wave, and then I was alone in the commons. Ponies milled about, talking to each other. Some were buying from the stalls, but most were just enjoying the day. Mosaic was a good town. Stuffy? Very, sometimes. A little too religious for my tastes? Often. But it was a good place and I liked it.

Just… not right now.

I hadn’t expected to be free so suddenly. I had planned everything out to keep myself from exactly this situation. I like to be alone, but hate very much to be lonely. And now I have all of tomorrow on top of the rest of today to revel in my own thoughts.

With as much dignity as I could muster, I straightened up and started walking towards home.

I passed a few ponies I knew, and a few I didn’t—not that I hadn’t seen them before, because I had. There weren’t that many ponies in Mosaic. I just hadn’t had the chance to meet them all. In fifteen-plus years. It wasn’t as if I hid. It was…

And there they were, as if they could hear my thoughts and knew exactly when not to appear. It was because of these two, walking towards me from the gates that led up into the streets. Walking purposefully.

Authority ponies encompass all three major tribes: earth, pegasus, unicorn. Earth, Sky, and Magic. They made a big deal out of that, actually. So how did you tell them apart? Simple. You waited for them to talk. Because they talk. It’s the first thing they do. I should know, because I am one, in a way. Authority ponies talk with a clipped, exact accent, drilled into them when they are young. In the old world, they might have called it an aristocratic voice, but in the now it’s just a way to distance themselves. I hear myself use it, and I wonder if they share the disgust I feel with myself.

The other way? Authority ponies never fit in. Look for the odd-pony out. The stallion who looks unsure of everyone around him. The mare who looks like she’s on a particularly bad date no matter who she’s with. Outside of the warm lights of the Authority, everypony is a noble savage at best and a profligate at worst. So it was that the two Authority tithe-takers would be obvious even without their clean uniforms. Black and tan, all straight lines and tiny insignia of Equestria.

“Ah, excuse me!” I kept walking. If anything, I sped up. Father raised me to be polite to a fault, but he also was clear that it was up to me how long I was willing to suffer fools.

“Sir! Excuse me, it’s Mr. Balm, correct?”

I ground my teeth and kept walking. They were right behind me now.

“If you would wait a moment… I know you might not…”

The other one tried. “We aren’t here to demand anything, young master Balm.”

I stopped. I turned. “Then what do you want?” I asked them. Did I keep my voice level? I tried. But how could anyone, knowing exactly how this conversation was about to play out? I could draw an entire flowchart of where this conversation was going to go. There were only a few avenues. It would begin, of course, in the obvious place.

They looked at each other for a moment. Both were unicorns, taller than me by a head and a half, not counting the horn. Both stallions, both with longer manes full of curls, one with eye-glasses. Yes, that’s right, I knew these two. I had thought it would be them. Which meant that I could cross out some of the expectations I had and settle on the stupider sort.

“We wanted to express our condolences regarding your father,” said the one on the left.

“Thanks,” I said, roughly. When he seemed taken aback, I sighed. “I’m sorry. Just…”

The second unicorn nodded. “We understand. I also perfectly understand why you would not wish to speak to us, of all ponies.”

“If you’re that perceptive, maybe we can skip the inevitable part where you try to get me to go back.”

And, miracles do occur in Mosaic, the second unicorn smiled faintly. “I actually had no plans to coerce any sort of return out of you, young master. Do you remember who we are?”

I blinked. “Really? No call to take up my father’s mantle? No self-aggrandizing speech on the glory of subterranean civilization and the common good?” I asked, a bit incredulous.

It wasn’t that I hated the Authority so much as I was frustrated by them. Because, even as I said this, I felt bad. A lot of those speeches were in earnest and I knew that. But some of my regret was tempered by both of them chuckling.

“No, not at all,” said the first. “We were students of your father’s. As much as it hurt when he left us and the movement…” He sighed and shook his head. “No, we understood.”

“Trying to convince you to come back with us, especially right now, would dishonor his memory,” said the other. “If you wished to return, we would of course sponsor you in a heartbeat, but you don’t. It’s fairly plain. We mostly came to offer our condolences and to ask of you a favor.”

I thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Notes.”

“Yes,” they said almost together. I chuckled, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I didn’t want them in my home. I very much did not want them to cross my threshold and touch my father’s things. The thought of them seeing my mother’s framed portrait or of them asking me about the Sword or sitting at our table for even a moment…

I swallow. “Come with me.”

My father was a doctor. His name was Gilead Balm, and he was the best at what he did.

That isn’t an exaggeration. The name Balm gets you places in Lunangrad and even beyond. Gilead Balm had been calm and collected in the face of death and disease. He had treated every sort of pony under the sun from Steel Rangers to raiders. Ponies in the Authority still talk about him sometimes. Graduated their Academy when he was still a colt, apprenticed to a surgeon on the cusp of adulthood. By the time he was old enough that no one questioned his maturity, he had seen more of the failures of the physical form than most ponies see in their lives. He came out the other side not only whole, but filled with a firm conviction.

Ponies had to do better.

My father became more than just a doctor. He became a leader. An icon. And then my mother died. And then he worked his last miracle here in Mosaic. And then he died.

And all that was left of Gilead Balm was myself and the lodgings he had paid for in advance that would keep me for a decade. All I had, besides for his notes and data and the few relics that he had saved. There weren’t many. He was not the kind that collected useless knick-nacks.

I showed the two Authority doctors—they both worked in Central Station, apparently—my father’s old terminal and then began making instant noodles. I had a lot of instant noodles. They were plentiful, cost about ten caps a packet, and easy to store. They also required a little preparation, which was fine. It gave me time to think. Or rather, to avoid thinking at all costs.

The two doctors whispered over my father’s data. I tried to tune them out.

When I was done, I sat down at the table—which was empty except for me—and briefly considered mimicking the grace that most ponies in Mosaic said before a meal, if only to see the looks on their faces. I didn’t. I just ate and didn’t look at them.

I looked at mother instead.

Not even these well-meaning intruders could change the feelings that swelled up in me as I looked up at her picture. We’d put it in the middle of the left wall, so that you could see it when you came in. You could turn at the computer terminal and see her there, framed and smiling down on you. That’s why he decided to put her picture here instead of his room, I think. On either side, there are smaller frames with clippings from the official government paper, the one the Authority brought in bulk every month even as far as Mosaic. Mother saved some of them, the ones with pictures. Dad had saved the rest. He would read them to her when she asked. He told me, when he was still healthy, that it had been a bit embarrassing but she had insisted that she hear every article they wrote on whatever miracle he’d worked last. I had read them all many times.

Mother herself? Mom. She would have preferred I call her that, I think. She was no Authority pony, regimented and certain. Her bright crimson eyes almost seem to sparkle, even though I know they don’t. Her coat is a blue-ish gray, and her mane is a electric blue. She smiled. Of course she did, and father would never have chosen a picture that didn’t have her smiling. It would have been hard to find one, anyway. He’d said once, when in a strange mood, that she rarely ever frowned. I’m old enough to know that can’t be true, but it’s nice to think about, isn’t it? The painting was done by a friend in Central, where they have the safety and the luxury for portraits. He’d managed to find a way to keep the small fangs out of sight. I didn’t blame him. True differences in Central? My mother had been loved, but in a different way.

Beneath the smiling batpony mare was the Sword. As always, it was locked firmly in place in its display case.

“By Celestia’s Ghost, he was still working on…” I couldn’t hear the rest. I ate a little faster, as if that would make them leave. I kept thinking about the memorial in front of me.

Curiously named, the Sword, as it wasn’t one at all. The Sword was a battle saddle of a custom design, one not based on the old world’s standardized designs. It had but a single gun, a long rifle that slung over the right shoulder and could swivel a bit. Only a few degrees, but I suppose it was enough. I wouldn’t know—I couldn’t operate the thing at all and had no real desire to learn. It was painted with the black and tan stripes of the Authority, but only in the front. The rest was honestly breathtaking. Below the stripes, there was a metal crest of Celestia and Luna chasing each other in the sky. It was actually almost identical to the mosaic at the entrance to the station that was the town’s namesake. Luna was on one flank and Celestia graced the other.

The resemblance of Mosaic’s mosaic to my mother’s sigil was part of the reason why we moved here, when I was young. I couldn’t help but stop by the image on the rare occasions I went up into the city. I would stop and lay my hoof on the flat, weathered stones, and wonder if my mother had ever lived here. If she had, dad didn’t say.

Sighing, I realized that I was done eating and my “guests” hadn’t left.

“You know, you can just download it all,” I said.

They jumped and turned to look at me. “Wh-what? Are you quite sure? We wouldn’t want to—“

“What? Find dad’s diary? If you do, read it if you want. If you really respect his privacy, you’ll know what to touch and what not to. I just…” I purse my lips. “It’s fine.”

The second one looks uncomfortable as he produces a holotape from his uniform pocket. “If it’s alright, we will. Are you sure? We could take notes manually.”

“No. Just take it all. If it helps, it helps. If it doesn’t… well, he would have wanted someone to try. I’m certainly not going to be able to,” I added. “Just take it.”

So they did. They left pretty quickly after that, probably sensing my mood. When they left, I wandered back into my room, found my radio, and hugged it. I was glad that the little bulb in my room had gone out. When I had the energy to move again, I would turn the one in the other room off. But for now… I just needed to lie here.

I turned on the radio and listened.

When my father died, I drifted. I was more than just distraught—I was hopeless. I had nopony else. Well, no, I had Sparkler. But that was it. No family that I knew of, really. My mother’s origins are mysterious and my father was an only child of parents who were long dead. Ponies in Mosaic loved my father for curing the Radplague after so many others had tried, but they also were wary of him. He was Authority, and outside of the Authority stations, that isn’t a good thing. Mosaic payed its tribute and got the minimal promise of protection from raiders and a couple of guards for the rare caravan it sent towards Central. The Authority was a force for good… probably. But no one liked it very much, and at the end of the day, that is what he was. It’s what I am, whether I want to be or not.

So I was alone. Nopony disliked me so much as I made them a little nervous. My father was dead, ironically, of disease he could not cure. My mother died of much the same. And that was when I started listening to the radio all day to fill the awful silence.

Then She appeared. The Stable Dweller, the Mare of Stable 2, the hero. The bringer of light and the last hero of Equestria. It was a heady draught, and I couldn’t help but see my mother in her, fighting the “good fight” out in the wastes. Saving ponies much like my mother had saved my father in the dark tunnels. I had begun to soothe the ache of the dual absence with the DJ’s tales of the Stable Dweller.

The music ended, and his voice came on. I smiled on reflex.

And then he started to tell a story. A very, very different story.

He told us all, his faithful listeners throughout the wide wasteland, about the mare who had stormed out from her stable to do battle with the evils of the world… and a little town called Arbu.

Author's Note

Footnote:
Level up! Perk Earned.

Gun Nut.
Just because you don’t know how they work doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the feel of a nice assault rifle in your hooves! +5 Small Guns +5 Repair