Fire licked at her coat, singeing and darkening her golden fur as she galloped past a burning building. A dark furred raider jumped down from a porch right into her path and she shrieked, stumbling back a couple steps. The earth pony advanced on her and she dove under him, propelling herself forward and past him with her magic. She heard him let out a confused noise as she turned a corner and raced toward the edge of town. The heat and soot from the fires made it hard to breath, but she pushed past the breathlessness. As soon as she got out it would be okay.
The vast Equestrian wasteland sprawled out before her as she made it past the last outlying farm of the village, which was nearly a kilometer out from the bulk of the homes, but still she kept running. She didn't know how long she kept going, but her hooves ached from the heavy slam of her galloping steps, and her legs burned with exertion. Her body was aching and was begging her to stop, but she could still hear the screams of her village, she could still feel the heat from the flames that ate her home. Her mother had told her to run, to go and never look back. There was nothing else she could do.
She ignored the way her muscles ached and forced herself forward. She could do it. She had to. What was all her training good for if she couldn't even run away from raiders?
A rock in her path that she failed to notice fast enough tripped her, and with a shriek, she tumbled forward, landing heavily in the dirt. She tried to get her hooves under her and push herself back up, but she collapsed again, her body refusing to go any further.
She looked back towards her village, tears springing to her eyes when she saw the dim red glow from the fires that burned the place, and the huge plumes of dark smoke that billowed up into the sky. She closed her eyes and sent up a little prayer to Celestia that their fates had been swift and that no pony was suffering at the hooves of the raiders. Even though it hurt to think that everypony she knew was dead, it hurt worse to imagine what horrible things that raiders would do to them if they were still alive.
She was rocking up and down slightly, and the gentle motion soothed her quite pleasantly. She was a big filly now, and it had been forever since anypony had carried her on their back, and she wondered who was carrying her, since it was such a rare occasion. She opened her eyes to see empty, barren fields of dust and it all came back to her in a rush. She stifled a sob and looked at the pony carrying her. From where she was laying across his back, she could only see the dust-colored coat he wore, his light grey-blue mane, and the side of his jaw. He didn't seem to notice that she was awake yet, and she took that as a good thing. She tried to move her hoof forward, to maybe slide off his back, but even that tiny movement sent waves of aching pain through her leg and she couldn't manage to lift it even a centimeter.
Horseapples, she thought.
Giving the stallion carrying her another glance to check if he had noticed her movements yet, she started focusing on her magic. A dark blue light shone from her horn and started enveloping her body. If she did it right, she could get pretty far away before the stallion was any wiser. She bit her lower lip and levitated herself off of him.
He stopped. For a moment, she considered dropping back down, but she dismissed that thought immediately. He would definitely notice that. Instead, she dragged herself backwards and away from him, going as fast as her magic would let her.
He flicked out his wings, grey feathers spreading, then settled them back against his sides. He turned his head and looked back at her, their eyes meeting. She froze and stared at him, still hovering midair.
He raised an eyebrow. “You gonna keep running, or do you want me to look away first?”
“I-” Her focus wavered and her levitation failed, sending her crashing to the ground. She yelped at the impact, her sore limbs protesting avidly at the rough landing. She heard his hoofsteps coming close to her and him grumbling to himself under his breath, but her legs refused to move so that she could run. The stallion let out a heavy sigh, muttering something that sounded like 'silly filly' as he settled down next to her and blanketed her with his wing.
She tried to move again, even more confused now than she had been before. He could have killed her already if he had wanted, so why hadn't he? She stopped trying to move when he started to speak.
“It's not safe out here. Raiders are nearby and I don't have enough ammo to take them out. Now, do you want to come with me, or do you want me to leave you alone?”
She looked up at him and blinked in surprise. Was he offering to protect her? Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why do you care?”
The wing he had draped over her abruptly snapped back to his side. “I don't.” He started to stand back up.
“Wait, don't leave me!” She desperately grabbed onto the corner his of his coat with her magic.
There was a tiny, almost reassuring smile on his face as he pulled something out of his saddlebags and gave it to her. “Drink this, it should let you walk again.”
Her eyes went wide. It was a healing potion. She had seen a picture of one in a book once, but to have one offered to her was something that she had never expected. She grabbed it with her magic and greedily swallowed it down. Her legs felt better instantly, and after a few seconds, she tried to stand again. With wobbly legs, she pushed herself up. It was a bit precarious, but she was standing again. She smiled and looked up at the stallion. “Thank you.”
He looked away. “Don't mention it.” He started trotting away, and she followed him.
She had to trot at a quick pace to keep up with him, her short legs not giving her anywhere near the same stride that he had. They had been walking for quite some time and when she looked back, the plumes of smoke from her village were almost out of sight.
She turned her head back to facing forward and ran into the stallion's wing. He had stopped and he was glaring out at their surroundings.
“Is everything-” she started.
“Shush.”
Just then, a group of four ponies walked out of the bushes and rubble around them.
“Silver Blade, did you really think you could just get away from us?” A dark red unicorn stallion purred, stalking forward towards the two of them.
“You're a bunch of idiots, Ruby, of course I did.” Silver Blade stomped his hoof, tilting his chin up.
She cautiously peeked past Silver Blade's wing that was still mostly shielding her from the view of the other ponies. A yellow and green striped earth pony mare leered at her and she cowered back.
“Picking up strays now? Isn't that beneath you? And such a small little blank flank filly too.” The striped one crept nearer as she spoke, getting uncomfortably close before Silver smacked her in the face with his wing, making the mare back off with a glare.
“Control yourself, Thunder,” Ruby barked. His eyes narrowed. “There'll be time for that later.”
She pressed herself against Silver Blade's leg, trying to make herself as small and invisible as possible. Ruby started talking again, but she didn't listen because Silver Blade started whispering.
“I need you to hide in a tree or something, kid. Got it?”
She nodded against him and he patted her side awkwardly with his wing. Closing her eyes, she focused and made her entire body light up faintly blue as she picked herself up with her magic. She opened her eyes and swept herself towards the highest branch on a nearby tree, only to be stopped by a tug on her hind leg. She looked back to find that a bright red glow was wrapped around her leg and Ruby's horn was glowing the same color. She frantically tried to pull away, but the stallion's magic was too strong for her and she only slowed the backwards pull on herself down.
There was a loud bang and her focus was lost, but instead of being pulled to Ruby like she had expected, she just fell. She landed heavily, managing to roll on impact with the ground and lessen the pain somewhat. She heard many more loud bangs, which she guessed was gunfire, and crawled into a nearby bush to hide.
After a few moments of repeated gunfire, everything went terrifyingly silent. She wanted to call out to Silver Blade, but she didn't dare give away her location in case he hadn't made it, and she couldn't gather the courage to peek out either. She crouched there, ears twitching with the effort she put into trying to hear something. The branches from the bush were scratching and poking her uncomfortably, making it hard to focus.
Finally, after what felt like ages, she heard Silver Blade's voice.
“Hey kid, you okay?”
“Yeah!” She started struggling to get out of the bush, but she stopped when he spoke again.
“Just stay there. I'll come get you in a few seconds, okay?”
She hesitated a second, but realized that he probably didn't want her seeing whatever remained of Ruby and the gang of ponies. “Okay.”
She sat still, waiting and listening to him walk around and the occasional sound of rustling cloth. He finally stepped into view. His grey fur was darker and redder in places than it had been before, as was his coat, and for a fleeting moment she wondered what color his they actually were, but she pushed that thought away.
He jerked his chin in the direction they had been walking before they had been ambushed. “Let's go.”
She scrambled out of the bush and trotted up next to him. He led her away, guiding her with one of his wings and keeping her from looking back. She didn't want to anyway, but she appreciated the gesture.
The wasteland stretched out on every side of them as far as the eye could see, endlessly vast and so much more that what she was used to. When she glanced back to where she knew her old home should be, she couldn't even see a hint of smoke anymore. She couldn't tell if it was the distance, or if all the fires had finally gone out, but it terrified her in a way; and she found herself drifting closer to Silver Blade. For the first time since this whole debacle had started, she wondered what she was going to do where she was going to go. There wasn't a lot of places that would take in an orphaned filly, even less that she thought she could get to. Her breath caught. Orphan. She was an orphan now. Her eyes were brimming with tears and her hoofsteps were getting wobbly, preventing her from walking in a straight line.
Silver Blade stopped walking and looked down at her.
She stopped too, wiping at her eyes with the side of her hoof before looking up at him.
His sudden movement had made his mane fall over his eyes a bit, and he blew it away with a slightly frustrated look. He focused his attention back on her. “There's an old farm nearby that we can rest at. You think you can make it?”
She nodded.
The farmhouse was a run down little shack, stained from water damage with vines crawling up its walls and strangling the building. It wasn't much better on the inside. Wallpaper with faded and yellowing images of flowers was peeling all over the place, and there was a fairly large hole in the ceiling. A clump of hay from the roof fell and landed next to her hoof. She frowned down at it. Looking up, she saw Silver Blade dragging a mattress away from the area were the hole was, and to a spot that was still covered by the roof. He dropped it and gave it a kick with his foreleg. A cloud of dust puffed out of it, quickly dispersing through the air, and making her sneeze.
She frowned at him. If he noticed her look, he didn't indicate it.
She walked over to the mattress, eyeing it with suspicion. While she suspected that she wasn't really going to care about what it had been exposed to during its time out in the open so long as it was soft enough, it was a matter of principle that she didn't just drop her standards just because that was what everypony was forced to do in the wasteland.
Silver Blade dropped his saddlebags next to the mattress. He stepped onto the mattress and trotted in a circle before settling onto it.
She had seen pet cats and dogs do that, but she had never seen a pony do it before. She tilted her head in confusion.
He raised an eyebrow at her, as if daring her to say something about it.
She shook her head, deciding that it wasn't worth it. Also, she noticed that he hadn't removed the coat that, now that she thought about it, hid his cutie mark, but she figured that it was probably warmer with it on. She sighed, feeling the ache in her muscles again and the exhaustion of the day weighing heavily on her. She hopped onto the mattress next to him and laid down, pressing against his side. It was cold out, and he was warm.
A grey feathered wing settled over her.
“You're awfully trusting, kid.”
“You're helping me. And you probably saved me from raiders.” She tilted her head back, pressing her dark grey mane against him to look up at his face.
Silver Blade sighed. He peered down at her. “What's your name anyway, kid?”
She blinked at him. She really hadn't even told him her name yet? “My name's Unity.”
He stared at her for a couple seconds, then burst out laughing, throwing his head back.
She pulled away from him with a glare. “What's so funny?” She stomped a hoof on the mattress, unintentionally making another plume of dust spew from it.
He shook his head, still laughing.
“Come on, tell me!”
He gave her a sideways look, still laughing softly. “Okay, so there's this preacher who hijacks the radios and he gets all-” He waved his hoof around. “And one of the things he always goes on about is this “unity” thing.” He looked down at her with a smirk.
“Oh sweet Celestia.” She hid her face in her hooves. “I thought being named after something on the radio meant something from a song.”
Silver Blade nudged her. “Hey, I was named after the first thing my mom saw when she came home with me for the first time. I'm just lucky she didn't decide to call me Table Top.”
She laughed. “I don't think anypony's mean enough to name their colt Table Top.”
He shrugged with a tilt of his head and a small grin on his face. “She was pretty lazy, I wouldn't put it past her.”
Unity giggled some more, relaxing and settling back down. Her eyelids drooped as she listened to Silver Blade tell her about the naming habits of his home. It was going to be okay, she decided. And she fell asleep against him, lulled by the sound of his voice.
