Fallout Equestria: On Rust Red Shores

The sun, it was something we had never truly known until recently, always hidden behind a veil of clouds. Now it shined down on us, oppressively heating everything with its naked glory. Nothing seemed safe from the heat, not even under shade. Our hooves could feel the burning of the dry cracked ground as dust plumed under each step.

“So, where is everypony?” Little Star Charter spoke up, walking under the shadow of our wing. “I thought Equestria was supposed to be full of ponies.” She was a young earth pony, having only recently gotten her cutie mark, a sextant over two crossed cutlasses. She had spent all her life among cutthroat sea raiders, so it was no surprise her cutie mark would reflect that lifestyle. We could only be glad its look lean more toward being adventurous than about killing like most ponies of her upbringing get.

Our eyes drifted from one end of the horizon to the next, looking for anything that could be dangerous. But nothing seemed to be alive here, not even the corpses, fortunately. We had only recently arrived in the Municipality of Reka, and from what we were told, it was supposed to be a bustling settlement that made its caps on trade. Unfortunately, the glowing ghoul had not told us that the settlement was now dead, though it looked like it had only died a few days ago, as many of the towns ponies still sat strewn about rotting under the blistering sun.

Kicking a discarded bottle, the ping of the glass on the rey dirt was the loudest thing we could hear, other than our hoofsteps as we made our way to the center of town. The town was surprisingly well built. Well, the parts that had not been burned down over the years were, at least. Many of the buildings had been built from wood, with some of them having been reinforced with various bits of scrap. Most of the surviving buildings even still had a coat of paint on it. In truth, it hardly looked like a wasteland settlement at all, though, it was still a far cry from an old world town. Most striking was the market place, with solid structures with enough space in between them for four of five temporary shops. One area was a large stage, with a wooden sign still hanging above it that stated the rules of the auction’s it must have held at one point. ‘Ten cap raise minimum. Must have proper licence to attend’. The sign also showed a pony holding a cap over their head as a pony on either side raised their hooves.

“Hay Prism, try this on!” Star picked up what looked like an ornate bracelet from the ground. “I bet it would look good on you.”

We lifted it up and gave it a look. The thing was a bit too big for our leg, but too small for our neck. “Sorry bet we don’t think we can use this.”

“We? It’s I, not we.” She said with a huff. “You have to stop talking like that, normal ponies don’t call themselves we.”

The filly was correct, but we were too use to speaking as a group, not as an individual. It had been a very long time since we had considered ourselves more than just a group. “Sorry, we are just use to talking like this.”

“Fine.” she huffed again. “Can’t say it doesn't have it’s own charm. But it’s still weird, sounds like you're talking on my behalf somethings.”

“Sorry about that.”

She rollder her eyes. “And don’t apologize, makes you sound week, like easy prey.”

It was strange dealing with Star, so young, yet so hardened to the world. Sometimes we feared that she may never find peace, that her nature will always lead her to violence and chaos.

Dropping the not large enough braclet, we saw that works of art were scattered about, both on the buildings, and laying around the town. Murals on the side of the building depicted ponies holding umbrellas, sheltering themselves from the rain above. Nothing all that colorful, but impressive in its size to say the least. Scattered around were jewelry made from polished rocks, shells, and even some made of bits of broken glass. Some were as simple as a stone held in wire, but a few others were made to look like stained glass windows, depicting a pony or other things. The ones depicting a pony seemed to have themes to it. Some ponies held weapons, others had a crown over their heads, and a few held tools in their hooves. Strangest yet were what looked like collars, many of which were decorated like it was jewelry, and some were even intricately engraved.

Star took a step towards one of the dead, but we reached out and stopped her with our wing. “No, leave the dead be for now. We should check the building for supply’s first, as you need clean water and food.”

“Fine” Star said with an annoyed tone. The growling in her stomach and the hunger in her eyes told us all we needed to know. She needed to eat soon, or she was going to grow more impulsive, more uncontrollable. We had run out of food, and as the day had grown long, so had her hunger. The poor filly was cursed by dark, evil magic. We had only felt it once from her before, but we knew it was still there. Whatever the cures was, it ate away at her slowly, much like a ghoul slowly going feral. We could tell from the look in her eyes, sometimes she was far away, only to be brought back by the growling of her stomach. We had come to call it the hunger, as that was all we truly knew of it. It forced her to eat far more often than a normal pony, and she seemed to have a favorability for meat, which was disturbing on its own.

We extended our wing, and pointed at larger building that had a large sign that stated “Town Hall”. It was still mostly intact, and was not charred black by fires long died out. “Let’s check that building, we might find some food in there.”

Star’s face lightened up, and she ran off ahead of us, no fear in her at all. With a sigh, we trotted after her. The building made of salvaged brick and scrap metal, not the best thing we had seen, but better than most.

*Tat* *Tat* *Tat*

Our heart pounded in our chest with hearing the sound of gunfire, and we rushed into the building. We saw Star Charter standing in front of a dead mole rat. “What happened?” We asked her hastily.

She smiled innocently. “Can we eat it?”

The mole rat looked like it was only skin and bones. But even if we hated to feed her hunger this way, there would be enough meat on the mole rat to sate her, even if only temporarily. “Yes, but we would have to cook it first.” We responded, causing Star to beam at us in delight. “But first, let’s search the building for anything useful.”

She saluted. “Aye, aye captain.” Again, with no fear at all, she ran off. It made us worry if we were to be honest. She was still too small to take on most of the dangers of the wasteland, and we were still too weak to protect her from any dangers if she were to stumble onto them in such haste. Shaking off the thought, we began to search through the building, opening desks, checking closets, but only finding nothing.

Alone, we went looking through every container we could find, everything always came up the same, completely and utterly empty. This town felt more than just dead, like this was just the stripped, empty shell of something bigger, and far more active. The emptiness just felt wrong here, like something was telling us in the back of our head that we should not be here. Walking to the back, a foul smell hit my nose. It was coming from the last place to look in this room, a door at the back. The closer we got the worse the smell became. The door opened without any resistance, and the light from behind us illuminated the dark room.

We feared to find more of the death that had met this town, but what we saw inside made us gag in revulsion. Dead ponies, many of them shot in the head, were all lined up in a neat row. This room was used for an execution. Not just that, a few ponies had been laid flat on their bellies, their flanks red raw, and a putrid yellow stained the floor beneath them. Every one of the ones posed that way had a bullet in their head. Some had been tortured before they died, and the idea of it all made our chest hurt, made me want to break something, some ponies.

“Prism!” Star called out from the second story above us.

Nervously, we slammed the door, hoping that if we could no longer see the horrors of that room, then it no longer existed. “What is it Star?” We shouted back.

“Come up here, you’ve got to see this!” She shouted in return. Knowing that the filly was a stubborn one, we quickly trotted around to figure out how to get where she was. Finding our self at some stairs, we looked around to find her above us at the top. “Come on, this way.”

Trotting up the stairs, we followed her to a room at the far end of a long hallway. The door to the room had a sign on it that stated ‘Winterberry, Stay Out!’. The room inside was quite lovely looking, with red velvet drapes hanging along the top of the walls, and a bed decorated in the same red velvet that looked far too good to belong in the wasteland. Star herself jumped up onto the bed and bounced a bit, enjoying herself.

“Can we stay here; this can be my room?” She flopped down on the bed and hugged a pillow tightly. “Please.”

We shook our head. “Sorry, but we think it’s safer if we leave. Soon, at that.”

She huffed. “Fine, but I’m taking the pillow. It’s nice and fluffy.”

We rolled our eyes. “Did you find anything of use up here?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, other than a dead fat pony. I think who ever raided this place really hated him.” With the pillow sticking halfway out of her saddle bag, the filly trotted out of the room.

Looking around our self, we had to admit that this was probably the nicest room we had ever seen. Other than the bed, it had fancy cabinet, a carpet with only one hole in it, and a… blue alicorn.

Looking at us was a tall, thin, sickly looking alicorn mare. Her mane was a mess, forming what looked like long dreadlocks. Her face was thin, with sunken in eyes that seemed to stare into our soul. Her body had dug in scars around her hooves,neck and chest, looking like she had been brutally tied down to the point that it had rubbed her fur off and carved into her skin. Even her wings and feathers were a mess, with one of the wings was missing missing a patch of feathers like they had been all ripped out. “Is…” We stepped forward as we spoke, and so did the mare. We tilted our head, and so did she. We projected our thoughts, and found ourselves alone. “Is this... me?” The mirror reflected what I had become, the face I knew from long ago was gone. No freckles on a creamy gray fur. No red, orange, yellow mane. No cutie mark depicting a rainbow.

How dare it. How dare it! How dare it show me what I’ve become. I wrenched the mirror with my magic, holding it up off the floor, and flung it effortlessly across the room with my magic. It shattering it into thousands of pieces. I didn’t need to see me… we didn’t need to be reminded of the past, of how much of a failure we were.

Stepping out of the room, the next closest room had a plaque on it that read ‘Mayor Elderberry’, and the door sat ajar with only a crack sitting open. Slowly, we opened it, only to find a pony hang by their neck from a ceiling fan. Sadly, it looked like whoever hung the mayor didn’t want to use any rope, and opted to hang the poor pony by their own intestines. If we had any food in us, we would have puked right there. Taking a step back, we properly shut the door, not even wanting to search the room.

“Star, lets go. We think that we're done here.” Stepping down the stairs, we picked up the emaciated dead mole rat with our magic, and walked out the door.

Star followed shortly after us. “So soon, Prism?” She looked around, and pointed at another, mostly intact building. “How about that one?”

We shook our head. “We don’t think anything’s left here. We should leave before the raider’s return.” The filly frowned, looking disappointed. “Don’t worry, if you can gather some wood, we can cook this mole rat for you.”

“I hope it tastes good.” She ran off, and began collecting broken pieces of wood that were scattered about. We ourselves trotted up to a collapsed building and pulled out a few exposed planks of wood. It was old and dried wood, so it should burn well enough.

We left the Municipality of Reka behind us, trotting down the broken remains of a street. We found a safe place to stop for now in what was left of a convenience store. Still hanging a large sign for sparkle-cola in it’s shattered window, we were hopeful the inside might contain something of use. However, like with the town, the interior was completely empty. Luckily, this meant there was room to make a fire and cook the mole rat.

Placing all the wood planks in a pile, we pulled out Star’s sword we had in our saddle bag. Carefully, we began cutting into the oversized rat. As we thought, the beast was little more the skin and bones. it must have only gotten into the town not long before we had, it not having enough time to fatten itself off of the dead left their. Salvaging what we could off of it, and placing its meager meat on top of it’s own bones to keep it off the floor. Using our magic, we were able to get a fire going, placing a plank of wood into it once the fire was good and healthy.

“Prism?” Star’s voice spoke up over the crackling fire. We looked behind us to see her with a wide grin on her face.

“What is it, dear?” We could only hope she was not going to ask to do something reckless.

“When I was gathering wood, I did find something.” She pulled out a rusty old pair of scissors. “Well, I was thinking that you might want your mane cut. You’ve been dragging it on the floor ever since we got to the mainland. Is it okay if I cut your mane?”

We sat there, feeling a little confused. Our mane... cut? “We can’t remember the last time we had our mane cut.” We looked at the fill as she gave us a pleading look. I sighed, unable to find the will to disappoint her. “Fine, but do not cut it too short. We do have some pride in our mane.”

She giggled, and jumped onto our back. Steeling our self, we proceeded to hold the mole rat meat over the fire as Star began to trim our wild and messy mane.

Time passed, and the filly had all that we had prepared off of the mole rat. It was not much, but Star ate it all, even cracking one of the bones to get at the marrow. We couldn’t help but feel a little disturbed by the sight of the carnivorous filly, but we were not going to fail her. We had already failed our own foal, but this time, she will live.

Picking up a piece of broken glass, we attempted to see what my new mane looked like. It was still a little wild, but now it only went as far as our shoulders, and or tail was cut to half the length as well. We don’t know why, but it made us feel a little like a normal pony again. Picking up the scissors, we proceeded to cut our bangs, having them now rest just above our eyes. A bit of the magical wave returned to our mane, returning some dignity back to us.

Placing the glass and scissors down, we trotted over to the window. The sun was now long gone from the sky, and the moon had risen above the horizon. It was faint, but we could hear gunfire somewhere in the night. It was far off, but still close enough to make us worried. Stretching out our wings, some of their strength had returned, the background radiation feeding us. “Mother, are we doing this right? Were we even worthy of the second chance you gave us? We worry that we will fail, we worry we will be alone again. Mother, why did you leave us, leave me.”

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Footnote:

Quest Start – On rust red shores