Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Bonding

Over the last 3 days a lot has happened between Allie and I, but not a lot for us. It's been the same thing every day. Go out, get more wood, more fabric, look for sustenance, dig through some rubble, rinse and repeat. Though I’ve been going out more my main focus has been back at home taking care of Allie.

She's really starting to open up. We’ve gotten comfortable enough with each other that I can approach her without issue. She's not much for chatter but she chimes in with a question every now and again; Where are you going, can I come too, to which my response is usually “Not until you can walk well on your own.” I guess she's really itching to get out of this cramped, dirty hole and stretch her legs. She is making quite a speedy recovery however. She’s been able to stand and walk on her own the only thing I’m worried about is for how long. I wouldn't want to go out with her and end up having to carry her back along with whatever we dig up. The other day I took most of her bandages off. The only thing she has on now is a knee brace I fashioned yesterday. She is on her way to a healthy recovery, much faster than I could have anticipated in the beginning.

Turns out Allie knows the layout of this town. She spent most of her life here, says it's called Ponyville or something like that. She won't tell me much about it. All I know is that she and all her little pony and animal friends used to call it home. I’m anxious to find out more but I know she avoids talking about it. I guess she's still coming to terms with her new reality. I’m still trying to come to terms with things myself, or at least why the hell I'm still here and have made it this far.

As far as resources go we’re about halfway through our water supply and coming up on halfway through food. On my own I managed to stretch a single Z-Ration out for five whole days. But now that I have her to take care of we managed to finish another one in just three days. Aside from our seemingly irreversible food situation, everything else is just fine. We have plenty of supplies and comforts at our disposal now. I got around to making us some sleeping bags and finally clogged up the parts of the ceiling where ash keeps leaking through. The only luxury we lack now is something to pass time. Yesterday Allie showed me a game called Tic-Tac-Toe which was pretty fun at first, but after a riveting session of 63 games in one sitting, it lost its charm. We’ve been trying to come up with other ways to fritter away the passing hours but it always comes back to sitting and silently watching the fire. Or making small, mindless renovations.

Day 8

Just over a week, one long week since my desertion. Today also would have marked the start of the 4th month since planetfall. I’m still somewhat surprised with myself I’ve managed to make it this far with as little adversity as I’ve run into. I used to be sure I would have been spotted and killed off by a drone by now, but I’m either just really lucky or they're not doing their jobs right. That or me running out of a vital resource and perishing as a result, or something along those lines.

8:24 am

“Alright Allie, I’m going out for a long time today. I probably won't be back until around sundown so I'm trusting you to stay here and do… Something. I don't know, just stay here and be safe okay?”

I pack my bag with a spot of food, water, and an extra 30 rounds of ammo and prepare for a long day. The lack of drone sightings has me a little on edge. I’ve been bringing extra ammunition along with me and occasionally scouting the borders of town for them but not a single one has turned up.

I throw my bag and rifle over my back and confidently head for the exit.

“Can I come too?” Allie asks timidly as I open the door flap. She looks at me with a spire of hope in her eyes, head tilted slightly to one side.

“Not today. I’m going to be doing a lot of walking. Just stay here like I said.”

I turn for the door but stop again as I hear her trotting up behind me. Defiantly, she seems stern that she wants to make today the day. I notice now the she no longer trembles when she puts weight on her bad leg.

“You sure you're able to go that long? We’ll be walking awfully far.”

She looks to her injured leg and then back to me, and nods.

“Okay, you can come. But I’m not carrying you back if you fall out.” I say jokingly.
Once beyond the breach Allie stops abruptly. There's a blank expression on her face as she surveys her ruined hometown, taking it all back in. I give her a moment with her silence before alerting her. I guess being cramped up in that hole for so long she forgot what the outside world had turned into. Eventually she moves on, not commenting or expressing a thing. She follows me around town as if it's business as usual.

“Alright, our priority for today is to find a way to restock our food and water supply. So just keep your eyes out for anything that might help us.”

We wander through the town silently. So silently that if it weren't for our footsteps the only sound one would hear is vacant ringing in the ears. Allie does not comment on anything she sees as she passes through the streets. I can see she's avoiding looking around much. She doesn't know it but I’m guiding our way to the library tree to see if she can't help me learn a little more about the place. It’s a little bit of a walk, so I decide to strike up a conversation.

“Sooo… Ponyville eh? You used to live here?”

She lets out a heavy sigh and says “Yes”, a twinge of sadness hangs on the end of it. Perhaps this wasn't the best question to start things off with. But oh well, I already said it so I might as well go with it.

“Is there anything you can tell me about it?”

“Um, W-well it used to be a nice little town. Before The Inferno…”

“The Inferno? Is that what you call it?”

“That's what we all called it.”

I stop in the middle of the road. “What? We?”

She looks at me with a mixture of sorrow and anger. “There used to be more of us.” she says, continuing on down the road.

I must have struck a nerve, she seemed uncharacteristically upset with that one. I wish there was something I could say to dissuade her negative outlook of me. But I know there's nothing. Despite how morally against I ever was about how we handled the invasion, In her eyes I will always be one of those monsters. I doubt I will ever truly be able to gain her full trust.

“I’m sorry, I didn't mean to be angry.” she says. “It's just been really hard--”

She stops to let out a few tears. Again, an overbearing sense of guilt washes over me. I go on and try to say something that might peacefully dissolve the situation.

“It's okay. I don't blame you at all for how angry you feel. What we did was pretty horrible, and I know that to you I’ll always be the bad guy. But for what it's worth, unlike the rest of my people I knew what we were doing was wrong. Believe me, if I had the power to fix everything or stop it all from ever happening in the first place, I would.”

She makes no remark, but continues on walking and gazing to the ground. I sigh, and continue with what I was saying.

“You’ll never trust me and may not ever like me but that's fine given what my people did but, *sigh*, I just wish I could show you I did what I could to avoid this. And now look where I’ve ended up.”

She continues with her silence. After a short while though she apologizes again. “For what?” I ask.

“I just don't know what to say. I just… Oh please don't be mad at me.”

I reassure her that I’m not. She goes on to say -

“But not everything was destroyed. The sun and moon still rise like they're supposed to. Somewhere out there, the two princesses are still working to make sure day and night pass as a symbol of hope for ponies like me to not give up.”

As much as I want to tell her the truth about that I stop myself. I know full well that her sun and moon goddesses are dead. As my role in the invasion, my unit was tasked with wiping their capital city off the map in the first days. We knew about their “princesses”, how powerful and influential they were, so our main objective was to kill them. Their entire culture revolved around these two, so command decided that destroying their center of morale would be the fastest way to get the Equines to submit. I was one of the first soldiers on the ground. I know what I saw. I saw the tank round that killed their sun goddess. It obliterated her. And it wasn't long after that that an infantry company reported that they had killed the moon goddess. The sun and moon still rise as they are supposed to, from the rotation of the planet, not some farcical magic powers they had. It was all a big hoax, and yet even now she still believes in it. I don't have the heart to tell her this, so I won't.

We come to within view of the library.

“Do you know what this is?” I ask

“Yes. This.. this tree used to be the town library. Twilight and all my friends used to come here all the time. *Sigh..* Twilight..”

Allie walks into the center of the library and stands still. She reminisces about the good memories she used to have here. But instead of digging through anything in search of memorabilia, she just stands there quietly, respectful of the silent nature.

“Let’s go.” she says, after several minutes of reserved peace. As usual she seems to be avoiding bringing up her past.

“Okay. You can lead the way now.” I say. “You know your way around this place better than I do. Anywhere specific you want to go? Maybe show me your old house or --”

“No!” She cries out. Her voice echoes through the barren streets. “I mean.. no. We can't go there.”

“Alright, fair enough. Too sensitive I'm guessing?”

“Umm.. Yes.. and it's very far from here, I don't think I could make it all the way there.”

“Okay then, so should we--”

“Let's just stay in the town. I’m sure there's still sooo much more to find here. I still need to get used to the new.. Ponyville.”

“It's fine. Come on, we got plenty of town to explore!”

I follow my map and lead us to unexplored territory. Once there I instruct her on what to do.

“Alright Allie. So basically, just sift through all these piles of rubble and let me know if you find anything interesting.”

I go to the nearest house to me and begin digging. Allie comes up beside me and starts picking up the smaller debris she can actually lift.

“Fluttershy.” she says.

“Huh?”

“My name. My name is Fluttershy.”

“Oh so she does have a name. Fluttershy huh? Fitting, you're shy, and you have wings.. Makes sense.”

There's a moment of silence as we dig together.

“So.. what's your name?” She asks.

I pause and hesitate about telling her my real name. In the culture I was raised, personal names have no use other than being able to give ourselves a personal identity. It's seen as taboo to talk about your personal identity with others, and it's only ever revealed to those whom you become very close to. It's just another facet of our society where everything is for the greater good. There is no self, everyone works and lives for everyone else. Anything that is held personally from others is frowned upon. Only one person has ever known my name, my late wife.

The way naming works for us then, is while one is developing in a surrogation pod, a computer randomly assigns you an Old Earth first name and last name. And the initials of that become the first two letters of your three letter name. Mine are J and A. The third letter comes at the moment of birth.

Each surrogate pod takes a slightly different amount of time to fully developed a human newborn before birthing. It helps promote genetic diversity, which is difficult to find naturally aboard a starship where most people have become infertile. All births are automated and closely regulated. Each birthing order consists of exactly 26 births, 13 male and 13 female, one for each letter of the alphabet. I was born the 25th of 26 in my birthing order, so my final initial is X. My name known to all aboard the starship is “J-A-X”. I don't bother to explain any of this to her however.

“Jax. My name is Jax.”

“Umm, well, it's nice to meet you Jax. Why do they call you that?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it some other time."

“Oh, okay.. I’ll just keep digging then..”

We continue to rummage through a particularly uninteresting house together. Fluttershy can only manage to move the smaller pieces of it all, which isn't much help but at least we’re working together now. The conversation picks up again while we move to search another house.

“Excuse me, Jax? Umm..”

“Yeah? What's up Fluttershy?”

“Thank you.”

I stop walking.

“For what?”

“For saving me and not leaving me there. E-even though you could have.”

“Well I couldn't just leave you there. Afterall, you and I? We're not so different.”

“And thank you for taking such good care of me. Usually I’m the one taking care of small, hurt little creatures.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yes.” She turns to show me her side, pointing to the three butterflies on her rear thigh. “See these? This is my cutie mark. I have mine because I'm good at understanding and caring for other creatures.” She now seems somewhat excited to share this with me. She continues on -

“Usually only ponies have them. We each earn ours whenever we discover what our unique and special talent is.”

“Hmm, Interesting..” I try to think of how that all works but fall short for an explanation. But regardless, right now I’m deathly fascinated on the inside to be learning all of what she's telling me. “So how'd you discover what yours was then?”

She goes on to very enthusiastically tell me the lengthy story of her childhood. How she lived in a city in the clouds, fell from it into a forest and how she was enigmatically charmed by the wondrous nature she discovered down below. Much like myself, she was mesmerized by how beautiful this place used to be. The story goes on as we dig through the next several houses. It often distracts her from helping me sift but I don't mind. In all honesty with her being of such a small stature, she wasn't making much of an impact anyway. But it's still appreciable to see her try.

“And I spent the rest of my life in Ponyville which was the perfect place to meet all kinds of woodland critters. I had so many animal friends. I had a bunny named Angel, a big brown bear named Barry, a tortoise named Terry and.. Oh, I miss them very much..”

“Yeah, I can see why. But like I said a while ago, you and I aren't that different. We both used to have friends and family, a life, things we loved, and then we both lost it all and now, here we are. We’re both out here, just trying to exist and make our way.”

I try to change the subject to something a little less.. Despondent. “So this Twilight person you mentioned earlier… Who was she? Was she close?”

“Oh.. *Sigh* She used to be my best friend.. I don't really feel like talking about it-”

Fluttershy almost reverts back into a deep sadness but catches herself.

“Okay. I'm sorry for bringing it up then.” I really need to stop asking questions like that. “Let’s talk about something else then.”

“Like?”

“Like.. Oh, here's a question for you. The day I found you, after that house collapsed on you. What exactly were you doing there?”

Fluttershy, no longer in much of a mood to talk, makes a familiar response I used earlier when asked about my name.

“*Sigh* It's a long story” she says. “I don't want to talk about it right now.”

“...Fair enough.”

There's yet another long, awkward silence as we continue to scavenge. We make it all the way to the end of the street before we speak again.

“Um excuse me, Jax? Could we take a break to um, eat?”

I check the time. 1:33 pm already? Wow, where did the time go? I guess finally having someone to speak to while I do this really helped move things along.

I agree with Fluttershy that it's time to stop for a nice snack. I make a cozy spot for us to sit down at and pull out a Z-Ration. The first thing I pull from it, a large meal with three courses worth of food in a single package. Steamed Rice and Vegetables (Artificial) is labeled on it in red, dotted lettering. Perfect. Even though it's just the side dish for this ration it can easily feed a single soldier for an entire day, breakfast lunch and dinner all in the form of Nutrient Rice and synthesized vegetables. One quarter portion each should be enough to tide us over.

After taking her first bite of it, Fluttershy comments that the food tastes rubbery. To me it's what I’m used to, I never thought it tasted like that. All of the food I've ever eaten is artificial and has that taste. I explain to Fluttershy that where I’m from, we can't produce or gather food naturally, it's all processed and synthesized by bionic machinery. The added benefit of our food is that we can pack several times the normal nutritional value of a single meal into much smaller portions. Our food must be that way, many of us require very high nutritional diets. Fluttershy then goes on to tell me about a thing called farming, a form of natural food production I had never heard of. She describes that one can grow all sorts of fresh, luscious, amazing tasting foods. Some of which I never knew there was a name for like carrots, corn, and apples, which are apparently the most delicious fruit a pony can eat. The concept of fresh tasting food fascinates me so deeply that I end up asking Fluttershy to describe the taste of an apple several times. Each time she tries to describe it differently but I stop asking once I realize she's running out of ways to word it. It sounds so delicious, so ambrosial. What I wouldn't give just to try one.

Likewise with my poignant obsession with their culture, Fluttershy seems almost as equally interested in mine. We trade off telling each other about different aspects of our lives. I tell her about where I came from and she tells me more about Ponyville. I tell her a story I had from my training days and likewise she shares a story about a time she went to do a thing called swimming. Some of what I share about myself sometimes comes off as a little too complicated for her to understand. Things like starships and interstellar travel or even what space is. She never knew that the sky above even had a definite end. None of her kind had ever made it up there before apparently. Some technical ideas I try to explain to her don't quite hit their mark, and she naturally waves it off as some form of high level magic ponies had yet to discover. And, as she tries to explain the mechanics of magic to me I try to put some sort of scientific backing to it but also end up finding it puzzling. We both have a tricky time understanding each other's cultures but we're both ecstatic about getting the chance to explain it to the other.

We talk for the next several hours about whatever comes to mind, forgetting all about our mission for the day just to have a nice break from it all. For the first time I think her and I can agree we’re actually starting to appreciate each other’s company. In a way stronger than just two people trying to survive off each other. We feel a close bonding in friendship beginning to form. Oh how wonderful it is to have that kind of bond with someone again. I've spent nearly all of my life around the same faces everyday, rarely ever going beyond simply greeting one another as we passed shoulder to shoulder in a crowded corridor. Finally I get the chance to know someone on a personal level, a feeling I’ve been deprived of for quite some time.

5:00 pm

“Welp, Fluttershy, I think it's high time we get back to work yeah?”

“Oh, okay. Well it was lovely chatting with you.”

“You know for someone so shy you sure have a lot to say.”

She chuckles lightly. “Thanks.”

“It's evening time. Sun's getting low. We should probably start working our way back towards home so we’re not too far when the drones come out.”

“Drones?” She asks, tilting her head to the side.

“Yeah, drones. You know, those metal things that roam around at night?”

“Drones…” She looks to the ground, thinking for a moment. Suddenly she gasps, her mouth hangs open and her eyes widen with dread. She enters a petrified trance. Whatever she's thinking about puts her into a 1000 yard stare. “Nightcrawlers!” She says, jaw trembling.

She stands there, a hoard of terrible memories flood back to her all at once.

“Hey, you okay?” I try to snap her out of it, but she remains fixed in her trance.

“We have to go back." she finally says, almost inaudibly.

“What?”

“No no NO! We have to go back now before the Nightcrawlers--”

“Hey take it easy, we still have plenty of time before--”

“I need to go back now!” Her shrieked voice pierces the otherwise silent world. I hear it echo three times before everything lulls back to its naturally quiet nature.

“..Fine. We’ll go back.”

It's a quick 20 minute jaunt back home. I say quick, but it would have been much quicker if Fluttershy had not been so abnormally paranoid the entire way back. For the whole of the trip, she cowardly tiptoed behind me and I had to usher her on many times. She was very on edge, always looking around and acting certain that at any moment a 'Nightcrawler’ would jump out and attack us. No matter what I said or how annoyed I got with her, she persisted.

We get back and she has a change of mood once inside the safety of our hovel. Her paranoia melts away into a saddened embarrassment. “I’m.. I’m sorry for.. always being so scared..” she says, head hanging low and avoiding eye contact as usual. I am somewhat annoyed. Cutting our expedition short after making so little progress by two hours that we could have spent searching, it irks me. And then having to essentially coach her all the way back… But I know I must not show my displeasure. Unfortunately it's something I have to hold back, for I know if I let it out she would not hold up to it emotionally. That's the last thing I need right now, for her to go back to a sullen and hopeless disposition… I wouldn't have sat well with myself afterwards either. Despite how much she slows me down, how much trouble the swirling negativity in my head wants to make her out to be, somehow the more gentle side of my indoctrinated mind wins over. I'm not supposed to grow close to anyone, it’s heavily discouraged in our Mental Resiliency Training. Somehow, yet again I find myself growing close when I know I shouldn't. But I look at her and see something so fragile but familiar. So helpless. I look at her, look in her glittering wide eyes and see her.. as the daughter I never had. Or at least a fill for the one I was so unfairly cheated out of. Needless to say, my fondness and caring for her has grown warm within my naturally cold heart.

I hold back with any words I might want to say. Instead, we continue our typical voided ambiance.

• - - -

“It’s my fault..” Fluttershy quietly murmurs to herself, just loud enough for me to hear.

“No Fluttershy, *sigh..* It's not. You're scared of the, 'Nightcrawlers’, and for good reason. It's okay to be scared out here you know. To tell you the truth.. I’m probably just as scared of them as you are.”

“It’s not that.. It's.. It’s.. *sigh* too painful to talk about.” She wipes a tear from her eye.

“Then you don't need to.”

“I’m sorry I made us come back so early.”

“You know you sure do apologize a lot. Heh, I might just have to change your name from Fluttershy to Apologyshy.”

She makes no comment to my little joke. Probably wasn't the right time for one. It was a dumb joke anyway.. But I can tell she weighs herself heavily on what happened in her past. Her mistakes.. How things used to be, it all still hangs heavy over her head.

“Look Fluttershy.. Sometimes you just gotta tell yourself that it is not that big a deal. So we lost a few hours. Oh well, we’ll have even more time tomorrow. Let's worry about moving forward and not looking back. Even I still have to remind myself of that everyday, but it works. It keeps me going. There isn't a point in looking back anymore, things aren't headed in that direction. This is just how things are now. You just gotta keep your head up. You gotta keep your eyes on what's ahead of you on the road. You don't have an option to do anything else. Right?”

“Right…”

There's a short pause, cut short but Fluttershy.

“I just feel like.. like I’m just slowing you down. I’m always so afraid of everything. I've always been afraid. It makes me feel so weak and unhelpful. Oh, maybe I should just leave you so you don't have to worry about me holding you back anymore..”

“What would you say.. is your biggest fear?”

“The Nightcrawlers!”

“No, not that. I mean inside you. We all have something deep inside of us we’re afraid of. Even I have things about myself I never want to come into my life.”

She takes a moment to think, but she seems like she already knows the answer but doesn't want to say it.

“Letting people I care about down.” She begins to cry a little more. “I let my family down, I let all my friends down, and now I've let you down-! I just can't do this anymore!”

I let her cry it all out before I speak again. She's gone far too long without having fully expressed herself. All that trauma and hurt she's been holding inside herself.. I just sit quietly, watching as she sobs heavily, letting all that badness come out. Some time passes before I let her hear my piece.

“I can't speak for your family or your friends, but I can more than certainly speak for myself. You haven't let me down one bit. But I won't lie to you. If I’m anything it's honest, so I'm not going to lie to you and say you've been doing everything right and you're not hurting me at all.. Yes, it would be easier if I was on my own. And you do slow me down. But I don't care. None of that really matters to me. Fluttershy.. You inspire me. You are one of the few reasons why I'm still out here trying my best. You may be scared but you are strong. I see a fight in you I've never seen in anyone before. Everything that's happened, everything bad you've experienced that’s knocked you down and kicked you on the ground and yet here you are. Still fighting, still kicking back. You say you can't keep going but you can. You've made it this far so why shouldn't you be able to keep on? When you can't walk through this anymore you just gotta look at your feet while you're telling yourself that. They're still going. All you have to do is put one foot in front of the other, again, and again and again until you show yourself that you are indeed still moving forward. Just keep pushing, one foot in front of the other. You have to tell yourself you want to see the next day come, which it always does. Every day, no matter how bleak or bitter it was always has a sunset. It's what I’m doing. And I know you can too Fluttershy.”

My words seemed to have calmed her. She's stopped crying, though I know inside she still at odds with herself.

“I’ll leave you with this to think about. I know what you're going to say, that it’s just 'so hard to do’ but see, that's the thing about saying something is difficult. It means you can do it, it just might need a little more work. I've done it, and by that very fact that someone else has done it means you can do it too. The only impossible task you'll ever face is the one you never begin. The hardest part is convincing yourself that you can do it, but after that, you're golden. All you have to do from there is just.. do it.”

• - - -

The rest of the evening is largely uneventful. At around 9:00, I help Fluttershy unruffle some of her feathers. She said she was feeling like they were healed enough for her to fly, so we straightened them all out as best as we could and she gave it a shot. Amazingly she did manage to get off the ground for a few seconds before their evident soreness brought her back down. The wind from her wings actually blew out the fire and I had to relight it. I think that's more of what brought her down than the soreness. She was about to panic again about blowing it out but it was fine. We ended up having a good laugh about it in the end. We were just more excited that she might soon be able to fly again than anything else. Fluttershy seemed more happy about it than I was. It really helped lift her spirits back up after her breakdown earlier.

But soon after, things went back to business as usual. Fluttershy and I brainstormed ideas about what we can do about reversing our food situation. She mentioned something about an old bakery on the other side of town. I was a little bit perturbed about why she hadn't mentioned it earlier but I dismissed any negativity I had. Stopping by the bakery sounds like it could potentially solve our problem for food and leave us only to deal with water. Even if it turns out to be but a temporary fix or even nothing at all it’s worth a shot. I’ll take what I can get. We still come up blank about water however. All the water within any sort of walking distance doesn't exist anymore, and I haven't seen any wells or taps around town either. We could dig for water, but even if we found some we have no way of filtering and collecting it. Finding water is truly becoming a challenge. A challenge that might someday bring us beyond the reaches of Ponyville.