Fallout Equestria: Snapdragonby thecyanidefairyChaptersChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter OneSnapdragon sighed and glared at the plant in front of him, running his hoof through his messy tangle of blue curls. ‘Why wont you live?’ he thought angrily, as he poked at the soil with a hoof, checking his measurements once again. “Soil mixture is fine, soil moisture is fine, you have the right amount of artificial sunlight with the optimal light balance for photosynthesis… and yet,” he muttered while another leaf crumbled into his hoof, “Yet you decide none of that is worthy of you and you decide to expire anyway!” Stomping angrily, Snapdragon flicked a wing open and swept the failed experiment into the compost before turning back to his notes, messily strewn about the metal desk in the makeshift lab he had created in his quarters. Flicking through them again and again he just couldn’t understand why his beloved namesake was refusing to grow. Snapdragons were a hardy plant, able to survive frost and all sorts of conditions, yet the snapdragon bulbs gown within the stable were spoiled and temperamental, refusing to grow until their environment was just right, which when you considered that the above world was a blasted landscape of hell and radiation, didn’t spell a great future for the floral industry of Stable 24. Snapdragon began to recalculate the soil chemistry he would need, his mind becoming lost within a maze of numbers. * * * “SNAPS!” He started awake, squawking in surprise as his wings flared out and he toppled off his chair, crashing onto the floor. Rubbing his head, he squinted up at the pony standing over him, now marked as his mortal enemy. A chocolate brown face came into view, surrounded by a puffy, curly pale yellow mane, topped with a cheerful grin. The face loomed closer and a loud, booming voice sang out, blowing Snaps’ mane back. “It’s dinner time!! And I’m going to eat your share if you don’t hurry up!” Eclair giggled, turning and running from the room, pounding hoof steps echoing down the hall while Snaps scrambled to get to his hooves, wings flapping helplessly as they blew his notes around the small room. “How does one earth pony manage to be so damn noisy?” he grumbled, finally folding his wings and setting off down the hall. The atrium opened up before him, a marvel of StableTec workmanship. Stable 24 was buried beneath what was once known as Macintosh hills, and it was known as the most unusual stable to be built. As deep and the mountain was tall, the stable was enormous. It ran sideways in an L shape, twisting through the mountain range housing all the earth ponies and unicorns, while the atrium, 1300 feet tall, housed the pegasi. Hallways branched off this spacious cylinder, leading to living quarters and the main cafeteria, the business offices and schools, leaving it looking less like a stable and more like a hive. There were no stairs, only smooth marble walls, whereas large, strategically placed blocks and beams jutted out, providing hoof holds for the unicorns and earth ponies to grip as they flipped themselves up, parkour style. Snapdragon stepped to the edge of the atrium, stretching his wings a few times, anticipating the cafeteria three floors below. It was hard work getting lift to fly up as high as he lived, but that was the purpose of this stable. StableTec locked their ancestors in here 150 years ago with a simple experiment, ‘Survival of the fittest’ quite literally. If you were unfit, you wouldn't be able to reach the food halls, schools or the administration offices. All ponies who attempted to break the experiment by bringing the food halls lower and more spread out, or not attending check in were met with meeting a mysterious and very unpleasant end, so the ponies living here just followed along. It was better than being outside, where the very air was poison. Taking a deep breath, Snaps leaped from the edge, folding his wings in as he dropped like a bullet towards the food hall. He flared out his wings, skidding into the entrance and slamming into the wall, which was naturally met with Eclair’s peals of laughter. “You could have waited for me, you know.” Snaps said as he was helped up by his sister. “If I did,” Eclair snorted, “I wouldn't be able to see you fail at landing so hard!” Grunting, Snapdragon pushed past Eclair and scanned his pipbuck at the check in box. Each pony in the stable has their measurements and fitness tested by the medical team at a monthly check in, which was put into the main computer to calculate their optimal calorie needs, which, when their pipbucks were scanned, dispensed 3 healthy, balanced meals a day. A failure to report for check in resulted in a visit from Stable Security. Two failures meant a month in the refinery, retraining your body to be at peak physical condition. Three failures… well lets just say three wasn’t an option. Picking up the plate of white porridge that was dispensed, Snapdragon followed Eclair over to a table in the corner of the cafeteria. Families usually ate together, and they were siblings, though they couldn’t have looked more different. Eclair was short and had a thick body, chocolate brown fur, a cute face surrounded by puffy pale gold ringlets. Her cutie mark fit her perfectly, a Chocolate Cosmos flower, or ‘Cosmos atrosanguineus’. Meanwhile, Snapdragon was tall and awkward, with a powder blue coat and rich, messy deep blue curls that cascaded everywhere, regardless of what he did to tame them. He was often mistaken for a mare, as everything about him just screamed femininity. Perhaps this was why his beautiful face was almost perpetually in a scowl, the other stable dwellers whispering often that his angry face looked just like a dragon, which suited his snapdragon cutie mark just fine. It was this scowling face that at last relaxed into a smile as he watched her sister dig enthusiastically into her ration. They really were opposites, he thought, but they were also perfectly matched too. Two peas in a pod. Their parents were long gone, but they had each other. ‘So, have you managed to find a way to combat the radiation effect on the flowers yet?’ Eclair had paused eating long enough to startle Snapdragon from his thoughts with a question. Snaps mouth turned back into a scowl as he began to eat. ‘Nope. It’s like if you just mention the word ‘radiation’ and they fall apart at the stem! How is your project coming along?’ ‘Slightly better, I have officially managed to boost the nutrients found within the petals, so we can start testing them in recipes soon.’ They went back to eating in a companionable silence, each thinking of the upcoming excursion to the surface. Several years ago the Overmare had announced that they would run out of food within ten years, unless major changes were made to the stables population and they found a way to get new soil. The soil that they grew their food in, was quite simply, burnt out, and couldn’t support plant growth much longer. At first ponies worried that the Experiment would be tampered with and began to panic, but instead the Overmare instructed a rule. Any pony over the age of 60 would voluntarily give themselves to the Garden, and by doing so boost the soil nutrients and preserve their food supply for an extra few years, giving the stable just enough time to find a way to grow flowers in the irritated soil above. Eclair was a part of the team that was changing their food nutrient content so that it would last the team long enough to get a variety of soil samples and come back. Snapdragon was going to be a part of the Excursion Team, doing on-site experiments with various bulbs, testing their growth in the wasteland and nutrient content. They were leaving in a month, and if he didn’t find a breakthrough about the radiation problem, then his part of the experiment would be met with failure and the continuity of the stables life would be jeopardized. It was enough to make a stallion lose his appetite. Unfortunately, ponies of Stable 24 didn’t have that luxury. Wasted food was met with consequences. Arching his back and feeling the muscles pop and crack, Snaps rose to his hooves and walked over to the disposal unit, placing his empty plate inside where the arms of the machinery within scooped it up for return processing. ‘Welp, time to get back to work.’ * * * Exhaustion set in, but he had done it. All that the snapdragons had needed was to be infused with rad-away at the bulb stage, and then they grew in the soil just fine. It was such a simple solution that Snaps almost screamed with rage when he figured it out. He had spent the better part of the week infusing the supply that would come with them out into the wastes. Eclair trotted into his room, her saddlebags overflowing and her eyes brimming with tears. “Snaps! It’s today and after today you wont be here and I will be alone and you will be out in the wasteland and I bought your suit-” Snaps cut off the stream of words with an embrace around his sister. “I will come back,” he whispered. “I promise.” “You’d better.” she sniffled. “Oh! I bought your radiation suit. The stallion size wouldn't fit you so I bought a mares medium. Don’t be mad.” Snaps laughed, his first genuine laugh in days. “How could I be mad? I’ve always looked like a mare, now I can dress as one too!” Eclair wiped her eyes, giggling as she watched him step into the garish yellow suit. “That doesn't suit your coat at all!” “Ugh I know! I don’t know how I’m going to get my mane into that helmet either.” Snaps said as he began winding his mane into a topknot, loose curls falling everywhere. Sighing, he let his hooves drop and his mane dropped back down with a ‘fwump!’ Eclair stepped over to him, and slowly ran her hooves through his mane, sorting it into strands for braids. “Don't you talk to any strangers now.” “Yes, mother.” “Don't be getting killed now.” “Yes, mother.” Braiding complete, she turned him towards her and popped the helmet over his head where it connected to the suit with a hissing noise. Her eyes softened as she looked at her brothers stony face. “I’m serious, Snaps. Come back alive.” Snaps sighed, his voice coming from a speaker at his neck. “I cant promise that, we don’t know what its like out there.” He lifted a banana yellow hoof and touched Eclair’s face, the suit making a crinkly noise as it touched her. “But I will try.” The siblings sat there for a while, leaning their heads against each other, breathing in each others company, until the speakers crackled and the voice of the Overmare echoed throughout the room, calling all excursion workers to the stable door. As Snaps slowly flew down the atrium shaft, he was surprised that the suit didn’t hinder his wing power at all. That was StableTec for you, they thought of everything. He watched his sister as she gracefully flipped between beams and blocks, twisting her body to a perfect landing. She was always extremely agile, the way she navigated the stable was almost flight in itself. He reached the bottom and reared in surprise. Lining the pathway to the door was almost the entire stable. They were screaming and cheering, cries of ‘Good luck!’ and ‘Come home safe!’ echoing throughout the entrance chamber. A sea of multicolored ponies, all pinning their hopes on this tiny little team. Ducking his head in embarrassment, he began to walk down the catwalk. Wolf whistles and good natured jeers greeted him, as the suit did cling to his feminine shape quite well. Now blushing furiously, he caught up with the rest of the team and the carts containing supplies as they stood before the Overmare. “Fillies and gentlecolts!” Her magically amplified voice silencing the crowd. “It is my greatest privilege to send these brave souls off on this scientific expedition in the name of preserving the future of Stable 24!” The Overmare smiled kindly at the team. “Your names will be preserved in our history books for generations as the incredible ponies who have risked their lives to bring us new soil. Thank you, and good luck.” She nodded to the security pony, who then flipped a switch and pulled a lever, triggering flashing lights and alarms as the stable door began to open for the first time in 150 years. The crowd surged against the guard rails, each trying to get a glimpse of outside, but Snaps only had eyes for his baby sister, right in the front row, her eyes locked on him. “Form up!” Jackdaw, the head of the excursion team shouted. Snaps took one last look at Eclair before facing the door. “Onwards!” Taking a deep breath of the magical oxygen flowing through his suit, Snaps and the team stepped out the door, towards the unknown. Author's Note This is my first FOE story, set approximately 50 years before FOE events. Please feel free to leave constructive feedback. Chapter TwoThe wind howled across the mountainside as the stable door slammed shut behind the excursion team. Even though the rad suit was temperature controlled and comfortable, Snapdragon felt a cold shiver creep down his spine as he took in the sight before him. There was a sheer drop directly below the entrance alcove, with the mountain sloping down on a sharp decline. Brown tufts of burnt grass and the charred husks of trees littered the mountainside, and the sky was a boiling grey mass of of thick clouds that stretched horizon to horizon. A path wound down from the alcove, down around the mountain before fading into the slightly green tinged mist that pooled at the bottom of the mountain. This was a far cry from the cool grey marble that coated the inside of the stable, but it wasn’t what sent the chill down his spine. That was caused by the long line of white and black skeletons that trailed down the mountain path as far as he could see, littered with carts, saddlebags and detritus as if the ponies had all perished in a single moment. ‘Which,’ Snaps thought grimly, ‘they quite possibly did.’ “Alright team, form a line!” Jackdaw shouted, the tinny sound of his speaker almost being drowned out in the screaming wind. “We are going to need to move some of those bones for the wagon to pass! The dirt we need is about a weeks travel from the base of the mountain according to our scans. I need Snapdragon, Willow and Sunflower at the front of the formation with shovels. don’t worry about the bones, they wont mind!” Snaps groaned at the thought of touching the burnt brittle bones, even through the rad suit. Willow bumped him as she walked past, a burly green unicorn mare. She turned and smiled down at Snapdragon, her robust size reminding him again of him own slender form. “The Crow is already pushing us hard aye!” she laughed and winked, her magic enveloping a plow and tossing it to him. Out of reflex Snaps tried catching it in his mouth only to have it clack against his helmet and clatter to the ground, causing Jackdaw to turn and frown at him. Flushing with embarrassment, he flipped the plow up into his hooves and squeezed past the wagon to the front of the group. Steeling himself against the rising bile in his throat, he began to push against a skeleton. The shovel ground against the bones but they did not move. Grunting, Snaps put his whole body behind the shovel, pushing as hard as he could, except the shovel promptly snapped, the head of the shovel spinning off the edge of the path and down the cliff, clanging as it went. His head whipped around at the similar sound happening to his teammates, shovels snapping. Sunflower grunted in surprised and caught himself with his magic, stopping himself from falling over the cliff. Willow wasn’t so lucky, her weight was too much to counter balance and she flipped over the bones, off the path, over the edge and plummeted down into the fog. Screams erupted from behind him as the team began to panic, only to have Jackdaw rip off his helmet, take a deep breath of the potentially poisoned outside air and yell as loud as he could. “SILENCE!” His deep, booming voice echoing down the mountain, reverberating back up to them as it bounced off the fog. The group fell silent. Snaps looked around him in fear, his heart hammering in his chest as he felt a strange vibration along his feathers. The vibration quickly spread to his hooves as a rumble, and the mountain began to shake. Rocks and debris began to fall from above them, bouncing off the cliff before disappearing in the same direction as Willow. The mountain began to shake in earnest now, Snaps throwing himself into the air to escape the unsteady ground. “BACK TO THE STABLE! RETREAT!” Jackdaw screamed in panic, turning to flee back to the safety of the alcove that the stable door was located in, before a huge rock slammed down behind the wagon, falling through the path and taking the pony standing behind it with it. Snaps began to shake as he realized there was no way back to Eclair. He beat his wings, trying to catch enough lift to pull away from the mountain. Pain exploded in his wing as a rock smashed through it, slamming him back onto the path amongst the bones. Dizziness clouded his mind, his ears ringing as he watched the blurry coloured ponies scurry around in front of him in panic, dodging falling rocks on the narrow path. Grey began closing in around his vision, the last thing he saw before passing out was the sight of more rocks piling up over the stable entrance, blocking completely what tiny path was left leading to it. “Eclair..” he whispered, then passed out. ***** Snapdragon coughed, choking as he awoke to the sickly taste of healing potion being poured down his throat. Swallowing and blinking, he looked around, realising his helmet was shattered around him, nothing filtering his lungs from the deadly air. His breath began to quicken in panic, and he started hyperventilating. A touch on his cheek drew his attention to his savior. Jackdaw sat back on his haunches, looking worriedly down at him, his eyes darting to the side as he looked at something with what seemed to be sadness. “Oh Snaps, I am so sorry.” The normally calm and collected unicorn moaned, his face ashen beneath his dark fur. “I am so, so sorry. Your wing… I didn’t know, medical didn’t cover this.” It was only then that Snapdragon noticed the dull ache at his side. Wincing, he looked down and let out a scream. His right wing was twisted and broken, the bones snapped and poking through the fragile skin, the pink marrow clearly visible, a chunk of rock still embedded in it. The healing potion was closing the wounds as he watched, but the bones were fusing wrong, they were healing in the still broken position. He tried moving it, only to groan as the rock had became a part of himself. Healing potions had stopped him from bleeding out and had numbed the pain, but it had indiscriminately healed him in a grotesque way. He flopped back onto the ground, covering his eyes with his foreleg so he didn’t have to see anymore. “Where is everyone?” he asked. Jackdaw sighed. “Willow, Lemongrass, Sunflower and Fennel are all dead, crushed or worse I imagine. I don’t know where everyone else is. When I woke up and drank a healing potion, I saw you lying there. I had thought you had died too, but you live.” Snaps heard Jackdaw lay down next to him, the dirt strangely crunchy under him. “We are about halfway down the mountain, it looks like we fell into a slightly covered underpass, thank Celestia. Our supplies are wrecked. Our equipment is wrecked. The stable door is blocked by a mountain of rocks that we couldn’t move even if we had Willow to help. You cant fly. My magic is broken.” Hearing that, Snapdragon opened his eyes and looked over at Jackdaw before letting out a gasp in dismay. Jackdaw was a very handsome unicorn, with an unusual coat as dark as coal, with a beautiful purple mane that flopped into his forest green eyes whenever he was concentrating. He was truly the heartthrob of the stable. Now his face was filthy and torn, his fur missing where it had been healed by the potion. That wasn’t what Snaps was staring at though. Jackdaw’s once proud and pointed horn now ended halfway up, cruel jagged tips where there should have been a fine point. Jackdaw winced, and tried to channel magic through it, only to have the tips spark and pop. Sweating and panting with pain, he looked helplessly at Snapdragon. “I was chosen to lead this excursion. It was my fault that the avalanche happened, it’s my fault our people cant go home.” Snaps opened his mouth to say something comforting, only to have vomit pour out as the adrenaline finally caught up with him. Healing potion tasted even worse coming back up. He felt too weak to even move to clean his fur. “Water?” he croaked, the taste of bile reminding him how thirsty he was. “We have your canteen and mine. That’s it. Unless we find the purifier in the wreckage, we are going to lose to thirst, or hunger, or exposure.” Jackdaw’s voice was grim as he clumsily hoofed over a canteen. Sparingly, Snaps rinsed out his mouth, then sipped at the canteen, ignoring his vomit covered fur. “What do we do now?” he asked the older stallion. “We find the wreckage. Pack as much as we can. Find the others, then find other ponies. Not everyone disappeared when the megaspells hit. We know there were at least 23 other stables made with however many ponies inside. We need to find only one of them and get a message to stable 24 for a rescue.” Jackdaw rubbed his face with a hoof, sitting up and staring at the horizon. “I don’t know this world, Snapdragon, none of us do. Whatever is out there, we have to hope it is friendly.” “Snaps.” Jackdaw looked at him in confusion. “You can call me Snaps.” Jackdaw smiled, wrinkling his nose slightly at the smell of his companion’s sour fur. “Jack is fine by me. Lets find that purifier, and get you cleaned up.” *** Scavenging was slow going for the both of them, as Jack was not used to using his hooves for everything, and Snaps was weighed down by the rock that now formed a part of his wing. They had found debris from the wagon, but not the actual wagon. “Should we use the path to go right to the bottom and see if it landed there?” Snaps sipped at his canteen awkwardly, holding his left wing out for balance as he drank. Walking on three legs was hardly graceful, but he couldn’t hold the canteen under his wings. “I think that's better than climbing directly down the mountain, but we might miss some supplies on the way down if they have fallen out of the wagon.” Jack kicked at a rock. “Lets do it this way until we hit the fog, then we will follow the path through it. If worst comes to worst, we can scavenge from the bones.” Jack looked a bit green at this idea. “That fog does not look healthy to breathe. I may only be a botanist but I know that breathing green air is not the path to a long and prosperous life.” Snaps glanced at Jack, noticing the sweat glistening on his coat, causing it to be slicked down against the firm muscles, sparkling in the sunlight with every move that he made. Shaking his head to distract himself from that very distracting sight, he continued. “Unless we find Willow. I know she had some air masks in her rad suit pockets.” “Agreed, that should be our first concern. I don’t know if you have noticed, but our rad counters have been steadily in the yellow this whole time.” Snaps looked down at his pipbuck, only to see a blank screen with a giant crack running across it. Tapping it yielded no results. “Umm…” He looked up at Jack helplessly. “A rock must have landed on it pretty hard for that to happen.” Picking up Snaps hoof, he inspected the pipbuck closely, tapping on the buttons in an attempt to get a response. Snaps flushed, feeling embarrassed that Jack was so close to him when he was covered in dried spew. Jack kept at the pipbuck for a while, before sighing and dropping Snaps’s hoof. “We will need a pipbuck technician to get that fixed. Hopefully there is one at the nearest stable.” “Where is the nearest?” Jack pointed his hoof south. “About 3 weeks travel that way, underneath what used to be a town called Appaloosa. We have no intel on what their experiment was, so I don’t know what condition their stable will be in.” “Why were the experiments taking place anyway?” “We don’t actually know. All we know is what the first Overmare told us, how our experiment works, and that when we try to change our experiment..well you know the rest.” Snaps nodded grimly. All of Stable 24 knew. They kept walking down in silence, hooves skidding slightly on the slope, scanning the landscape for any large chunks of debris. The stench of his fur was really bothering Snaps, and he could feel his clumsily healed wing dragging uselessly upon the ground, the rock embedded within it stopping him from even folding it. His hooves crunched across the parched mountain ground, his breathing rasping, heart pounding in his chest. Over and over his mind replayed watching the stable door being covered by rocks. He smiled sadly as he wondered what Eclair would think of his broken wing. She’d probably laugh and tease him, saying how they were equal now, and he couldn’t just lazily fly around the stable. Oh Celestia, he realised, it finally dawning on him. He’d never fly again. Not unless a miracle happened. Tears of grief and anger welled up in his eyes and he angrily blinked them away before Jack could see. Why was he getting mopey now? If they didn’t find their supply wagon before they hit that fog, he wouldn't ever see Eclair again anyway. A distant shout rang out, and Snaps looked up to find he had wandered quite far away from Jackdaw, who was now waving excitedly at him and pointing behind him with a hoof. Breaking into a gallop, Snapdragon ran after him. “I found the wagon. And Willow!” Jack was excited, but also sad. “It isn’t pretty, so don’t look. I already pulled out the re-breathing masks from her pocket, but I will need your help turning the wagon over so we can get at the supplies inside.” Snaps nodded, closing his eyes against the sight of Willow’s crushed head while he leaned against the wagon. Jack slammed into it next to him, grunting and straining as they levered the wagon until it was upright. The wagon groaned and the stuff inside crashed as it landed on the broken wheel spokes, the side giving way and landing on the ground. The wagon kept rocking, and a bang was heard from inside as what Snaps guessed was the giant medicine chest fell onto the floor The wagon splintered into pieces, chunks of wood flying everywhere. Snapdragon winced in pain as several of them embedded themselves in his skin. Jack dove into the wreck, pulling planks out of his way as he vanished. His head appeared from under the debris, a bag of water clutched in his teeth. He tossed it over to Snaps, where it landed at his hooves. “Use that to clean yourself up, while I dig around some more in here. A lot was broken but I think we can salvage some.” Snapdragon blushed, daintily picking up the water skein and trotting to behind a rock, he was humiliated that he was so filthy, and that Jack had been so kind about it. Scrubbing at his fur with a hoofful of water, he smoothed down his mane and tail. Soon he looked a bit waterlogged, but back to his usual self. He didn’t smell any more at least. Shaking his curly mane out into its usual poofy self, he stepped out from behind the rock. A clatter came from Jack’s direction, and Snaps head whipped up to see Jack staring at him, slack-jawed, as a few food boxes rolled around at his hooves. “What?” Nervousness bloomed within him. Had he missed a spot? He quickly turned in a circle, trying to see what had startled Jack. “Nothing. You just look different with your fur all wet like that.” Jack said gruffly, before looking back down at the pile of supplies that he had gathered. Snaps felt his eyebrows raise. Was Jack blushing, or was it just the light? He shook his head. Jackdaw wouldn't blush like that over a damn stallion, no matter how feminine he looked. “How will we carry all of this?” Jack mused. “The rad suits were almost destroyed, and they don’t have saddle bags anyway. We counted on carrying it all in the wagon. We are woefully unprepared.” Snapdragon knocked a few things from the pile, hoping to see a familiar blue tin. He let out a sigh of relief, it was there. He scooped it up, and then began to tug at Willow’s body, much to Jack’s horror. “What are you doing?” He gasped. “We need her rad suit material. She fell first so the rocks didn’t damage hers too badly. She is big, I can make two rudimentary saddlebags from it.” Snaps tugged the rad suit off the giant mare and nosed open the blue tin to reveal a sewing kit and other odds and ends. He sat down and began to slice up the suit. Jackdaw knelt on the ground beside him, watching him work. ”Where did you learn this?” his eyes followed Snaps as he skillfully stitched the strips of cloth together, manipulating the needle with his tongue, his head bobbing up and down methodically. Jackdaw flushed and looked away. Spitting out the needle, Snaps held up one saddlebag. “My mother taught me as a colt. I was determined to get my cutie mark so I pestered her to teach me every hobby she knew. This one was my favourite, and if I hadn't discovered botany, I’d have probably become a tailor.” The two stallions sat in comfortable silence, processing all that had happened to them while Snapdragon sewed. Night has begun to fall, the clouds above darkening to a deep grey black, almost identical to Jackdaw’s coat. Gathering wood from the wreckage, Jack used a flint to create a small fire. It was cold up on the mountain, and as he was a unicorn, he didn’t have the innate weather protection like pegasi or the robust hardiness of an earth pony. He began to shiver, despite the fire’s feeble warmth. Night had completely fallen by the time Snapdragon had finished sewing the new saddlebags. He looked over at Jackdaw, surprised to see him dozing, gently shivering in the cool night air. Snapdragon felt his heart beat a little quicker at the stallions sleeping face. He pulled a fire proof blanket from the first aid kit in pile of supplies and settled himself down next to Jack, draping his good wing over him along with the blanket. It was just to keep them both warm, he kept telling himself as he nuzzled into Jack’s back. Only for warmth. Chapter ThreeSnapdragon blearily opened his eyes in the dim morning light, finding himself alone on the mountain face. Wearily pushing himself up, he screamed as pain ripped through his wing and he collapsed back onto the ground, sobbing in agony. Overnight, the combined painkilling effects of the healing potion and shock had worn off and he could now feel every single badly healed bone in his wing. He could feel the rock grating against the exposed bone marrow, the sharp plastic of the rad suit fragments tugged at the raw, poorly healed and inflamed flesh of his wing, the flight feathers bent and snapped, twisting with his sudden movement. Hoof beats ran up behind him and he could hear Jackdaw swearing, but it sounded so very far away, the tunnel of agony being all Snaps could focus on. Fresh pain bloomed on his flank as a needle jammed into his skin and emptied it’s contents into his body. Screams retreated into whimpers as the pain faded into a dull ache, his body becoming sluggish and slow moving. Through the mist he realised that Jackdaw had overdosed him on Med-x, numbing his entire body instead of localized pain. Snaps sighed internally. Well it was better than feeling the wing pain, but he wouldn't be traveling anywhere until his body metabolized some of the potion. He wearily rolled his eyes up to Jackdaw’s worried and frantic face, winking one of them slowly to show he was okay and not dying, despite how he looked. His tongue felt hot and swollen in his mouth and his eyes drifted closed as sleep overwhelmed him. * * * Consciousness seeped back into Snaps, along with the pain. Groggily, he shifted slowly across the burnt earth to the medical chest in the wagon, and slipped out a syringe, plunging it into the base of his wing and squeezing out the correct amount this time. Sighing in relief as the fire in his wing faded, Snaps sat down to think. It was very late in the evening, Jack had dozed off next to the fire, opened bean cans stacked neatly next to him. Knowing that the Med-x was just suppressing his appetite, Snaps forced himself to open a can of peaches, the preserved fruit slimy on his tongue. Gulping down the nectar, he leaned back and suppressed a burp, his stomach feeling tight after not eating for a full day. Thoughtfully, he looked down at his mangled wing. The pain would only get worse as the infection set in, and then it would start to rot, poisoning his blood and eventually killing him. The only other option outside of a miracle, he thought, was to cut it off. Strangely, Snaps felt calm. His mind wasn’t screaming at the thought of hacking off his beloved wing, it was like he didn’t feel anything. So this is what shock was like. He couldn’t cut it off himself though. He leaned walked over to the wagon, and gathered what he needed. “Jack.” “Jack.” Louder this time. “JACK.” Jack startled awake, his hoof jerking out and knocking over the can pile he had made. Bleary, sleepy eyes focused on Snaps. “What are you doing up? You should be resting!” Jack scooted over to him, wincing as he looked away from his wing. Snaps looked calmly at the shaky stallion, his eyes a cooler blue then normal. Maybe it was the drugs, but his mouth felt like it belonged to someone else as he uttered his next words. “I need you to cut my wing off.” Jack stared at him, the colour draining from his face, his mouth agape. He made as if to talk, but only a squeak came out. “Please.” Snaps lifted the medical tin and began to methodically set out the equipment onto the fire blanket, muscle memory from setting up experiments in his lab making the tools neat and tidy. The blanket made a small crinkle noise as he set each one down. Disinfectant. Crinkle. Super strength restoration potion. Crinkle. Med-x. Crinkle. Bandages. Crinkle. Tape. Crinkle. Tourniquet. Crinkle. Mouthwash. Crinkle. Scalpel. Crinkle. Hacksaw. Crinkle. “No.” Jack was shaking his head. “There has to be another way.” Snaps mind was as placid as a frozen lake as he stared the handsome stallion down. “Either you cut off my wing now, we get off this mountain and find a way back into the stable. Or you don’t, and the infection that has already started gets worse, poisons my blood and I die right here, while we eat up our precious supplies. Your choice.” Snaps sighed, putting his hoof over Jacks. “I cant reach my wing to get a clean cut. I need you to do this for me.” “But my horn… I cant…” “Use your mouth. We have hospital grade mouthwash.” Snaps turned, sloshing disinfectant over a stone and his wing. Laying down next to the rock, he spread his wing up over it, turning his head to once again stare at the shocked Jackdaw. “I need your help, Jack. Please.” Stiffly, Jack walked over to the pile of tools, looking at Snaps with eyes that almost couldn’t believe what he was doing. “What..” his voice croaked and died. “What do I do?” Once again feeling like his mouth was moving on its own, Snaps began to talk Jackdaw through the procedure. It was a fairly simple procedure, so easy to remove the thing that allowed him the freedom to fly. “First, disinfect your hooves and mouth. There are gloves in the medical box, put them on then wrap the tourniquet around my wing.” he watched as Jackdaw moved slowly to his instructions, reluctance in every single step. “Pull it tighter, you want to cut off the blood supply.” Jackdaw looked down at him, worry almost aging his chiseled features. Pulling his face into smile that was fooling nobody, Snaps tried to look as reassuring as possible. Jack sighed and picked up the scalpel, moving over to Snapdragons wing. Snaps took one last look at his once beautiful wing. The pale blue feathers, all bent and broken, blood matted in between them. The skin was bound to the rock, tugging and pulling as his muscles shifted, angry red and leaking pus. He felt the tourniquet dig into his skin, creating a horrible pressure on his wing. His beautiful, precious and now deadly wing. Snaps inhaled, his slender chest expanding with the breath he needed to say the next words. “Do it.” There was no pain, Jackdaw kept him topped up on the Med-X as he used the scalpel to slice through skin, veins and ligament. Snaps could feel each cut, a strange and invasive feeling. Small snapping feelings radiated down his wing as each layer was sliced through. Blood ran in small rivers down the rock, staining his fur and Jack’s muzzle. There was a scrape. “I’ve hit the bone.” Jackdaw said, spitting the scalpel out and picking up the hacksaw. “Can you see the joint?” Snaps asked, not willing to turn around and see what had become of his beautiful wing. “Cut just below it.” “Roger.” Jackdaw was in full concentration mode now, his eyes focused solely on the important task before him. Snaps could feel the intensity radiating off him, and took comfort in it. Closing his eyes, he began to list off his favourite flowers, trying to avoid hearing the sound of the hacksaw, and ignore the grating feeling of it slicing through his bone, the pain radiating even through the haze of drugs. It was a deep, burning pain, as if it came from far away. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it ended. As if a great weight was lifted from his side, Snaps tipped over onto the crispy dirt, sprawling onto his remaining wing. He looked down at his side, seeing himself drenched once more in blood, but now instead of soft feathers, there was only a bloody stump. He moaned, closing his eyes and fighting down vomit as he barked out the last of his orders. “Pour half the restoration potion over it, then bandage it up, just like you were taught in first aid.” The small amount of pain ebbed from his side as the potion closed the wound, and Snaps guzzled the rest of it. The potion tasted clammy and slimy down his throat, his body still feeling alien, even more so now that his sense of balance was thrown off. It would take a few weeks to heal fully as they had to preserve their medical supplies, but it would heal cleanly now. He lowered his head to the ground, tears staining his beautiful blue fur as his body shook with sobs. He was now a demi-wing, a flightless bird. A groundwalker. Bandaging complete, he felt his body shift as Jack laid down next to him, tenderly laying a hoof over his flank and pulling him close. “Are you in pain?” “No.” “Do you want some water?” “No.” Silence fell upon them, their breathing in quiet tandem, as they simply took comfort in each others presence. The night fell around them, eerily silent in the wasteland. No birds, no insects, not even the familiar whine of the stable lights that had been present his whole life. Just himself, Jackdaw and a tight bandage around his midsection, holding his stump against his body. And a thickening lump against his flank. His body reflexively stiffened and he pulled away from Jack, who flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry. I don’t know why it happened.” Jack mumbled, shifting himself over to the camp and covering himself with a blanket, his face red and dark in the fading light. “I’ll just start the fire. You should eat.” “Eating. Right.” Snapdragon flopped back down to the dirt, his mind racing. That was an erection. Jackdaw got an erection while holding him. Did that mean Jack desired him? Why now? Why when he was covered in blood and tears? Was it an accident, like he said? A natural reaction to the loneliness of the wasteland? Snaps put his hooves over his head and squeezed his eyes shut. This was too much right now. The smell of beans cooking wafted past his nose and he began to drag his exhausted body over to the fire. “Hey, you stay there. I’ll bring this to you” Jack had recomposed himself and was spooning beans into a bowl. “I’ll bring you to the fire myself after you’ve eaten. You shouldn't be moving around too much tonight.” Snaps opened his mouth to argue, only to close it again as weariness set over him. It was too much. Too much right now to deal with. Jackdaw settled in front of his muzzle, the hint of unwashed muskiness and blood causing Snap’s nose to twitch. He couldn’t even imagine how he smelled. They both needed a bath, but until they found more water to purify, they had to just put up with it. Awkwardly, Jack lifted the spoon of beans to Snaps’s mouth, still unused to the lack of magic. The warm beans filled his mouth, but for some reason Snaps couldn’t bear to swallow them. His throat simply wouldn't perform the simple act of swallowing a simple mouthful of humble beans! Jack looked at him, concern in his eyes. “Not good?” Turning, Snaps spat the beans out, pulling his canteen to him and drinking. Swishing around his mouth, he cleaned it of the feel of the beans. “I don’t know. I just cant eat right now. I think,” Snaps swallowed, “I think I need to be alone.” “Oh. Alright.” Moving back to the fire, Jackdaw slumped onto the ground, facing away from him. Snaps scooted himself closer to the fire, guilt gnawing at his insides while he looked at the broad muscles on Jack’s back. He wanted to reach out to him, run his hoof through the smooth fur. The feeling at his side was overwhelming. He just felt so wrong now his wing was missing, it felt like a hole had been torn in his heart. Closing his eyes, Snaps began to recall the feel of flying, hot tears slipping from his eyes.
Chapter OneSnapdragon sighed and glared at the plant in front of him, running his hoof through his messy tangle of blue curls. ‘Why wont you live?’ he thought angrily, as he poked at the soil with a hoof, checking his measurements once again. “Soil mixture is fine, soil moisture is fine, you have the right amount of artificial sunlight with the optimal light balance for photosynthesis… and yet,” he muttered while another leaf crumbled into his hoof, “Yet you decide none of that is worthy of you and you decide to expire anyway!” Stomping angrily, Snapdragon flicked a wing open and swept the failed experiment into the compost before turning back to his notes, messily strewn about the metal desk in the makeshift lab he had created in his quarters. Flicking through them again and again he just couldn’t understand why his beloved namesake was refusing to grow. Snapdragons were a hardy plant, able to survive frost and all sorts of conditions, yet the snapdragon bulbs gown within the stable were spoiled and temperamental, refusing to grow until their environment was just right, which when you considered that the above world was a blasted landscape of hell and radiation, didn’t spell a great future for the floral industry of Stable 24. Snapdragon began to recalculate the soil chemistry he would need, his mind becoming lost within a maze of numbers. * * * “SNAPS!” He started awake, squawking in surprise as his wings flared out and he toppled off his chair, crashing onto the floor. Rubbing his head, he squinted up at the pony standing over him, now marked as his mortal enemy. A chocolate brown face came into view, surrounded by a puffy, curly pale yellow mane, topped with a cheerful grin. The face loomed closer and a loud, booming voice sang out, blowing Snaps’ mane back. “It’s dinner time!! And I’m going to eat your share if you don’t hurry up!” Eclair giggled, turning and running from the room, pounding hoof steps echoing down the hall while Snaps scrambled to get to his hooves, wings flapping helplessly as they blew his notes around the small room. “How does one earth pony manage to be so damn noisy?” he grumbled, finally folding his wings and setting off down the hall. The atrium opened up before him, a marvel of StableTec workmanship. Stable 24 was buried beneath what was once known as Macintosh hills, and it was known as the most unusual stable to be built. As deep and the mountain was tall, the stable was enormous. It ran sideways in an L shape, twisting through the mountain range housing all the earth ponies and unicorns, while the atrium, 1300 feet tall, housed the pegasi. Hallways branched off this spacious cylinder, leading to living quarters and the main cafeteria, the business offices and schools, leaving it looking less like a stable and more like a hive. There were no stairs, only smooth marble walls, whereas large, strategically placed blocks and beams jutted out, providing hoof holds for the unicorns and earth ponies to grip as they flipped themselves up, parkour style. Snapdragon stepped to the edge of the atrium, stretching his wings a few times, anticipating the cafeteria three floors below. It was hard work getting lift to fly up as high as he lived, but that was the purpose of this stable. StableTec locked their ancestors in here 150 years ago with a simple experiment, ‘Survival of the fittest’ quite literally. If you were unfit, you wouldn't be able to reach the food halls, schools or the administration offices. All ponies who attempted to break the experiment by bringing the food halls lower and more spread out, or not attending check in were met with meeting a mysterious and very unpleasant end, so the ponies living here just followed along. It was better than being outside, where the very air was poison. Taking a deep breath, Snaps leaped from the edge, folding his wings in as he dropped like a bullet towards the food hall. He flared out his wings, skidding into the entrance and slamming into the wall, which was naturally met with Eclair’s peals of laughter. “You could have waited for me, you know.” Snaps said as he was helped up by his sister. “If I did,” Eclair snorted, “I wouldn't be able to see you fail at landing so hard!” Grunting, Snapdragon pushed past Eclair and scanned his pipbuck at the check in box. Each pony in the stable has their measurements and fitness tested by the medical team at a monthly check in, which was put into the main computer to calculate their optimal calorie needs, which, when their pipbucks were scanned, dispensed 3 healthy, balanced meals a day. A failure to report for check in resulted in a visit from Stable Security. Two failures meant a month in the refinery, retraining your body to be at peak physical condition. Three failures… well lets just say three wasn’t an option. Picking up the plate of white porridge that was dispensed, Snapdragon followed Eclair over to a table in the corner of the cafeteria. Families usually ate together, and they were siblings, though they couldn’t have looked more different. Eclair was short and had a thick body, chocolate brown fur, a cute face surrounded by puffy pale gold ringlets. Her cutie mark fit her perfectly, a Chocolate Cosmos flower, or ‘Cosmos atrosanguineus’. Meanwhile, Snapdragon was tall and awkward, with a powder blue coat and rich, messy deep blue curls that cascaded everywhere, regardless of what he did to tame them. He was often mistaken for a mare, as everything about him just screamed femininity. Perhaps this was why his beautiful face was almost perpetually in a scowl, the other stable dwellers whispering often that his angry face looked just like a dragon, which suited his snapdragon cutie mark just fine. It was this scowling face that at last relaxed into a smile as he watched her sister dig enthusiastically into her ration. They really were opposites, he thought, but they were also perfectly matched too. Two peas in a pod. Their parents were long gone, but they had each other. ‘So, have you managed to find a way to combat the radiation effect on the flowers yet?’ Eclair had paused eating long enough to startle Snapdragon from his thoughts with a question. Snaps mouth turned back into a scowl as he began to eat. ‘Nope. It’s like if you just mention the word ‘radiation’ and they fall apart at the stem! How is your project coming along?’ ‘Slightly better, I have officially managed to boost the nutrients found within the petals, so we can start testing them in recipes soon.’ They went back to eating in a companionable silence, each thinking of the upcoming excursion to the surface. Several years ago the Overmare had announced that they would run out of food within ten years, unless major changes were made to the stables population and they found a way to get new soil. The soil that they grew their food in, was quite simply, burnt out, and couldn’t support plant growth much longer. At first ponies worried that the Experiment would be tampered with and began to panic, but instead the Overmare instructed a rule. Any pony over the age of 60 would voluntarily give themselves to the Garden, and by doing so boost the soil nutrients and preserve their food supply for an extra few years, giving the stable just enough time to find a way to grow flowers in the irritated soil above. Eclair was a part of the team that was changing their food nutrient content so that it would last the team long enough to get a variety of soil samples and come back. Snapdragon was going to be a part of the Excursion Team, doing on-site experiments with various bulbs, testing their growth in the wasteland and nutrient content. They were leaving in a month, and if he didn’t find a breakthrough about the radiation problem, then his part of the experiment would be met with failure and the continuity of the stables life would be jeopardized. It was enough to make a stallion lose his appetite. Unfortunately, ponies of Stable 24 didn’t have that luxury. Wasted food was met with consequences. Arching his back and feeling the muscles pop and crack, Snaps rose to his hooves and walked over to the disposal unit, placing his empty plate inside where the arms of the machinery within scooped it up for return processing. ‘Welp, time to get back to work.’ * * * Exhaustion set in, but he had done it. All that the snapdragons had needed was to be infused with rad-away at the bulb stage, and then they grew in the soil just fine. It was such a simple solution that Snaps almost screamed with rage when he figured it out. He had spent the better part of the week infusing the supply that would come with them out into the wastes. Eclair trotted into his room, her saddlebags overflowing and her eyes brimming with tears. “Snaps! It’s today and after today you wont be here and I will be alone and you will be out in the wasteland and I bought your suit-” Snaps cut off the stream of words with an embrace around his sister. “I will come back,” he whispered. “I promise.” “You’d better.” she sniffled. “Oh! I bought your radiation suit. The stallion size wouldn't fit you so I bought a mares medium. Don’t be mad.” Snaps laughed, his first genuine laugh in days. “How could I be mad? I’ve always looked like a mare, now I can dress as one too!” Eclair wiped her eyes, giggling as she watched him step into the garish yellow suit. “That doesn't suit your coat at all!” “Ugh I know! I don’t know how I’m going to get my mane into that helmet either.” Snaps said as he began winding his mane into a topknot, loose curls falling everywhere. Sighing, he let his hooves drop and his mane dropped back down with a ‘fwump!’ Eclair stepped over to him, and slowly ran her hooves through his mane, sorting it into strands for braids. “Don't you talk to any strangers now.” “Yes, mother.” “Don't be getting killed now.” “Yes, mother.” Braiding complete, she turned him towards her and popped the helmet over his head where it connected to the suit with a hissing noise. Her eyes softened as she looked at her brothers stony face. “I’m serious, Snaps. Come back alive.” Snaps sighed, his voice coming from a speaker at his neck. “I cant promise that, we don’t know what its like out there.” He lifted a banana yellow hoof and touched Eclair’s face, the suit making a crinkly noise as it touched her. “But I will try.” The siblings sat there for a while, leaning their heads against each other, breathing in each others company, until the speakers crackled and the voice of the Overmare echoed throughout the room, calling all excursion workers to the stable door. As Snaps slowly flew down the atrium shaft, he was surprised that the suit didn’t hinder his wing power at all. That was StableTec for you, they thought of everything. He watched his sister as she gracefully flipped between beams and blocks, twisting her body to a perfect landing. She was always extremely agile, the way she navigated the stable was almost flight in itself. He reached the bottom and reared in surprise. Lining the pathway to the door was almost the entire stable. They were screaming and cheering, cries of ‘Good luck!’ and ‘Come home safe!’ echoing throughout the entrance chamber. A sea of multicolored ponies, all pinning their hopes on this tiny little team. Ducking his head in embarrassment, he began to walk down the catwalk. Wolf whistles and good natured jeers greeted him, as the suit did cling to his feminine shape quite well. Now blushing furiously, he caught up with the rest of the team and the carts containing supplies as they stood before the Overmare. “Fillies and gentlecolts!” Her magically amplified voice silencing the crowd. “It is my greatest privilege to send these brave souls off on this scientific expedition in the name of preserving the future of Stable 24!” The Overmare smiled kindly at the team. “Your names will be preserved in our history books for generations as the incredible ponies who have risked their lives to bring us new soil. Thank you, and good luck.” She nodded to the security pony, who then flipped a switch and pulled a lever, triggering flashing lights and alarms as the stable door began to open for the first time in 150 years. The crowd surged against the guard rails, each trying to get a glimpse of outside, but Snaps only had eyes for his baby sister, right in the front row, her eyes locked on him. “Form up!” Jackdaw, the head of the excursion team shouted. Snaps took one last look at Eclair before facing the door. “Onwards!” Taking a deep breath of the magical oxygen flowing through his suit, Snaps and the team stepped out the door, towards the unknown. Author's Note This is my first FOE story, set approximately 50 years before FOE events. Please feel free to leave constructive feedback.
Chapter TwoThe wind howled across the mountainside as the stable door slammed shut behind the excursion team. Even though the rad suit was temperature controlled and comfortable, Snapdragon felt a cold shiver creep down his spine as he took in the sight before him. There was a sheer drop directly below the entrance alcove, with the mountain sloping down on a sharp decline. Brown tufts of burnt grass and the charred husks of trees littered the mountainside, and the sky was a boiling grey mass of of thick clouds that stretched horizon to horizon. A path wound down from the alcove, down around the mountain before fading into the slightly green tinged mist that pooled at the bottom of the mountain. This was a far cry from the cool grey marble that coated the inside of the stable, but it wasn’t what sent the chill down his spine. That was caused by the long line of white and black skeletons that trailed down the mountain path as far as he could see, littered with carts, saddlebags and detritus as if the ponies had all perished in a single moment. ‘Which,’ Snaps thought grimly, ‘they quite possibly did.’ “Alright team, form a line!” Jackdaw shouted, the tinny sound of his speaker almost being drowned out in the screaming wind. “We are going to need to move some of those bones for the wagon to pass! The dirt we need is about a weeks travel from the base of the mountain according to our scans. I need Snapdragon, Willow and Sunflower at the front of the formation with shovels. don’t worry about the bones, they wont mind!” Snaps groaned at the thought of touching the burnt brittle bones, even through the rad suit. Willow bumped him as she walked past, a burly green unicorn mare. She turned and smiled down at Snapdragon, her robust size reminding him again of him own slender form. “The Crow is already pushing us hard aye!” she laughed and winked, her magic enveloping a plow and tossing it to him. Out of reflex Snaps tried catching it in his mouth only to have it clack against his helmet and clatter to the ground, causing Jackdaw to turn and frown at him. Flushing with embarrassment, he flipped the plow up into his hooves and squeezed past the wagon to the front of the group. Steeling himself against the rising bile in his throat, he began to push against a skeleton. The shovel ground against the bones but they did not move. Grunting, Snaps put his whole body behind the shovel, pushing as hard as he could, except the shovel promptly snapped, the head of the shovel spinning off the edge of the path and down the cliff, clanging as it went. His head whipped around at the similar sound happening to his teammates, shovels snapping. Sunflower grunted in surprised and caught himself with his magic, stopping himself from falling over the cliff. Willow wasn’t so lucky, her weight was too much to counter balance and she flipped over the bones, off the path, over the edge and plummeted down into the fog. Screams erupted from behind him as the team began to panic, only to have Jackdaw rip off his helmet, take a deep breath of the potentially poisoned outside air and yell as loud as he could. “SILENCE!” His deep, booming voice echoing down the mountain, reverberating back up to them as it bounced off the fog. The group fell silent. Snaps looked around him in fear, his heart hammering in his chest as he felt a strange vibration along his feathers. The vibration quickly spread to his hooves as a rumble, and the mountain began to shake. Rocks and debris began to fall from above them, bouncing off the cliff before disappearing in the same direction as Willow. The mountain began to shake in earnest now, Snaps throwing himself into the air to escape the unsteady ground. “BACK TO THE STABLE! RETREAT!” Jackdaw screamed in panic, turning to flee back to the safety of the alcove that the stable door was located in, before a huge rock slammed down behind the wagon, falling through the path and taking the pony standing behind it with it. Snaps began to shake as he realized there was no way back to Eclair. He beat his wings, trying to catch enough lift to pull away from the mountain. Pain exploded in his wing as a rock smashed through it, slamming him back onto the path amongst the bones. Dizziness clouded his mind, his ears ringing as he watched the blurry coloured ponies scurry around in front of him in panic, dodging falling rocks on the narrow path. Grey began closing in around his vision, the last thing he saw before passing out was the sight of more rocks piling up over the stable entrance, blocking completely what tiny path was left leading to it. “Eclair..” he whispered, then passed out. ***** Snapdragon coughed, choking as he awoke to the sickly taste of healing potion being poured down his throat. Swallowing and blinking, he looked around, realising his helmet was shattered around him, nothing filtering his lungs from the deadly air. His breath began to quicken in panic, and he started hyperventilating. A touch on his cheek drew his attention to his savior. Jackdaw sat back on his haunches, looking worriedly down at him, his eyes darting to the side as he looked at something with what seemed to be sadness. “Oh Snaps, I am so sorry.” The normally calm and collected unicorn moaned, his face ashen beneath his dark fur. “I am so, so sorry. Your wing… I didn’t know, medical didn’t cover this.” It was only then that Snapdragon noticed the dull ache at his side. Wincing, he looked down and let out a scream. His right wing was twisted and broken, the bones snapped and poking through the fragile skin, the pink marrow clearly visible, a chunk of rock still embedded in it. The healing potion was closing the wounds as he watched, but the bones were fusing wrong, they were healing in the still broken position. He tried moving it, only to groan as the rock had became a part of himself. Healing potions had stopped him from bleeding out and had numbed the pain, but it had indiscriminately healed him in a grotesque way. He flopped back onto the ground, covering his eyes with his foreleg so he didn’t have to see anymore. “Where is everyone?” he asked. Jackdaw sighed. “Willow, Lemongrass, Sunflower and Fennel are all dead, crushed or worse I imagine. I don’t know where everyone else is. When I woke up and drank a healing potion, I saw you lying there. I had thought you had died too, but you live.” Snaps heard Jackdaw lay down next to him, the dirt strangely crunchy under him. “We are about halfway down the mountain, it looks like we fell into a slightly covered underpass, thank Celestia. Our supplies are wrecked. Our equipment is wrecked. The stable door is blocked by a mountain of rocks that we couldn’t move even if we had Willow to help. You cant fly. My magic is broken.” Hearing that, Snapdragon opened his eyes and looked over at Jackdaw before letting out a gasp in dismay. Jackdaw was a very handsome unicorn, with an unusual coat as dark as coal, with a beautiful purple mane that flopped into his forest green eyes whenever he was concentrating. He was truly the heartthrob of the stable. Now his face was filthy and torn, his fur missing where it had been healed by the potion. That wasn’t what Snaps was staring at though. Jackdaw’s once proud and pointed horn now ended halfway up, cruel jagged tips where there should have been a fine point. Jackdaw winced, and tried to channel magic through it, only to have the tips spark and pop. Sweating and panting with pain, he looked helplessly at Snapdragon. “I was chosen to lead this excursion. It was my fault that the avalanche happened, it’s my fault our people cant go home.” Snaps opened his mouth to say something comforting, only to have vomit pour out as the adrenaline finally caught up with him. Healing potion tasted even worse coming back up. He felt too weak to even move to clean his fur. “Water?” he croaked, the taste of bile reminding him how thirsty he was. “We have your canteen and mine. That’s it. Unless we find the purifier in the wreckage, we are going to lose to thirst, or hunger, or exposure.” Jackdaw’s voice was grim as he clumsily hoofed over a canteen. Sparingly, Snaps rinsed out his mouth, then sipped at the canteen, ignoring his vomit covered fur. “What do we do now?” he asked the older stallion. “We find the wreckage. Pack as much as we can. Find the others, then find other ponies. Not everyone disappeared when the megaspells hit. We know there were at least 23 other stables made with however many ponies inside. We need to find only one of them and get a message to stable 24 for a rescue.” Jackdaw rubbed his face with a hoof, sitting up and staring at the horizon. “I don’t know this world, Snapdragon, none of us do. Whatever is out there, we have to hope it is friendly.” “Snaps.” Jackdaw looked at him in confusion. “You can call me Snaps.” Jackdaw smiled, wrinkling his nose slightly at the smell of his companion’s sour fur. “Jack is fine by me. Lets find that purifier, and get you cleaned up.” *** Scavenging was slow going for the both of them, as Jack was not used to using his hooves for everything, and Snaps was weighed down by the rock that now formed a part of his wing. They had found debris from the wagon, but not the actual wagon. “Should we use the path to go right to the bottom and see if it landed there?” Snaps sipped at his canteen awkwardly, holding his left wing out for balance as he drank. Walking on three legs was hardly graceful, but he couldn’t hold the canteen under his wings. “I think that's better than climbing directly down the mountain, but we might miss some supplies on the way down if they have fallen out of the wagon.” Jack kicked at a rock. “Lets do it this way until we hit the fog, then we will follow the path through it. If worst comes to worst, we can scavenge from the bones.” Jack looked a bit green at this idea. “That fog does not look healthy to breathe. I may only be a botanist but I know that breathing green air is not the path to a long and prosperous life.” Snaps glanced at Jack, noticing the sweat glistening on his coat, causing it to be slicked down against the firm muscles, sparkling in the sunlight with every move that he made. Shaking his head to distract himself from that very distracting sight, he continued. “Unless we find Willow. I know she had some air masks in her rad suit pockets.” “Agreed, that should be our first concern. I don’t know if you have noticed, but our rad counters have been steadily in the yellow this whole time.” Snaps looked down at his pipbuck, only to see a blank screen with a giant crack running across it. Tapping it yielded no results. “Umm…” He looked up at Jack helplessly. “A rock must have landed on it pretty hard for that to happen.” Picking up Snaps hoof, he inspected the pipbuck closely, tapping on the buttons in an attempt to get a response. Snaps flushed, feeling embarrassed that Jack was so close to him when he was covered in dried spew. Jack kept at the pipbuck for a while, before sighing and dropping Snaps’s hoof. “We will need a pipbuck technician to get that fixed. Hopefully there is one at the nearest stable.” “Where is the nearest?” Jack pointed his hoof south. “About 3 weeks travel that way, underneath what used to be a town called Appaloosa. We have no intel on what their experiment was, so I don’t know what condition their stable will be in.” “Why were the experiments taking place anyway?” “We don’t actually know. All we know is what the first Overmare told us, how our experiment works, and that when we try to change our experiment..well you know the rest.” Snaps nodded grimly. All of Stable 24 knew. They kept walking down in silence, hooves skidding slightly on the slope, scanning the landscape for any large chunks of debris. The stench of his fur was really bothering Snaps, and he could feel his clumsily healed wing dragging uselessly upon the ground, the rock embedded within it stopping him from even folding it. His hooves crunched across the parched mountain ground, his breathing rasping, heart pounding in his chest. Over and over his mind replayed watching the stable door being covered by rocks. He smiled sadly as he wondered what Eclair would think of his broken wing. She’d probably laugh and tease him, saying how they were equal now, and he couldn’t just lazily fly around the stable. Oh Celestia, he realised, it finally dawning on him. He’d never fly again. Not unless a miracle happened. Tears of grief and anger welled up in his eyes and he angrily blinked them away before Jack could see. Why was he getting mopey now? If they didn’t find their supply wagon before they hit that fog, he wouldn't ever see Eclair again anyway. A distant shout rang out, and Snaps looked up to find he had wandered quite far away from Jackdaw, who was now waving excitedly at him and pointing behind him with a hoof. Breaking into a gallop, Snapdragon ran after him. “I found the wagon. And Willow!” Jack was excited, but also sad. “It isn’t pretty, so don’t look. I already pulled out the re-breathing masks from her pocket, but I will need your help turning the wagon over so we can get at the supplies inside.” Snaps nodded, closing his eyes against the sight of Willow’s crushed head while he leaned against the wagon. Jack slammed into it next to him, grunting and straining as they levered the wagon until it was upright. The wagon groaned and the stuff inside crashed as it landed on the broken wheel spokes, the side giving way and landing on the ground. The wagon kept rocking, and a bang was heard from inside as what Snaps guessed was the giant medicine chest fell onto the floor The wagon splintered into pieces, chunks of wood flying everywhere. Snapdragon winced in pain as several of them embedded themselves in his skin. Jack dove into the wreck, pulling planks out of his way as he vanished. His head appeared from under the debris, a bag of water clutched in his teeth. He tossed it over to Snaps, where it landed at his hooves. “Use that to clean yourself up, while I dig around some more in here. A lot was broken but I think we can salvage some.” Snapdragon blushed, daintily picking up the water skein and trotting to behind a rock, he was humiliated that he was so filthy, and that Jack had been so kind about it. Scrubbing at his fur with a hoofful of water, he smoothed down his mane and tail. Soon he looked a bit waterlogged, but back to his usual self. He didn’t smell any more at least. Shaking his curly mane out into its usual poofy self, he stepped out from behind the rock. A clatter came from Jack’s direction, and Snaps head whipped up to see Jack staring at him, slack-jawed, as a few food boxes rolled around at his hooves. “What?” Nervousness bloomed within him. Had he missed a spot? He quickly turned in a circle, trying to see what had startled Jack. “Nothing. You just look different with your fur all wet like that.” Jack said gruffly, before looking back down at the pile of supplies that he had gathered. Snaps felt his eyebrows raise. Was Jack blushing, or was it just the light? He shook his head. Jackdaw wouldn't blush like that over a damn stallion, no matter how feminine he looked. “How will we carry all of this?” Jack mused. “The rad suits were almost destroyed, and they don’t have saddle bags anyway. We counted on carrying it all in the wagon. We are woefully unprepared.” Snapdragon knocked a few things from the pile, hoping to see a familiar blue tin. He let out a sigh of relief, it was there. He scooped it up, and then began to tug at Willow’s body, much to Jack’s horror. “What are you doing?” He gasped. “We need her rad suit material. She fell first so the rocks didn’t damage hers too badly. She is big, I can make two rudimentary saddlebags from it.” Snaps tugged the rad suit off the giant mare and nosed open the blue tin to reveal a sewing kit and other odds and ends. He sat down and began to slice up the suit. Jackdaw knelt on the ground beside him, watching him work. ”Where did you learn this?” his eyes followed Snaps as he skillfully stitched the strips of cloth together, manipulating the needle with his tongue, his head bobbing up and down methodically. Jackdaw flushed and looked away. Spitting out the needle, Snaps held up one saddlebag. “My mother taught me as a colt. I was determined to get my cutie mark so I pestered her to teach me every hobby she knew. This one was my favourite, and if I hadn't discovered botany, I’d have probably become a tailor.” The two stallions sat in comfortable silence, processing all that had happened to them while Snapdragon sewed. Night has begun to fall, the clouds above darkening to a deep grey black, almost identical to Jackdaw’s coat. Gathering wood from the wreckage, Jack used a flint to create a small fire. It was cold up on the mountain, and as he was a unicorn, he didn’t have the innate weather protection like pegasi or the robust hardiness of an earth pony. He began to shiver, despite the fire’s feeble warmth. Night had completely fallen by the time Snapdragon had finished sewing the new saddlebags. He looked over at Jackdaw, surprised to see him dozing, gently shivering in the cool night air. Snapdragon felt his heart beat a little quicker at the stallions sleeping face. He pulled a fire proof blanket from the first aid kit in pile of supplies and settled himself down next to Jack, draping his good wing over him along with the blanket. It was just to keep them both warm, he kept telling himself as he nuzzled into Jack’s back. Only for warmth.
Chapter ThreeSnapdragon blearily opened his eyes in the dim morning light, finding himself alone on the mountain face. Wearily pushing himself up, he screamed as pain ripped through his wing and he collapsed back onto the ground, sobbing in agony. Overnight, the combined painkilling effects of the healing potion and shock had worn off and he could now feel every single badly healed bone in his wing. He could feel the rock grating against the exposed bone marrow, the sharp plastic of the rad suit fragments tugged at the raw, poorly healed and inflamed flesh of his wing, the flight feathers bent and snapped, twisting with his sudden movement. Hoof beats ran up behind him and he could hear Jackdaw swearing, but it sounded so very far away, the tunnel of agony being all Snaps could focus on. Fresh pain bloomed on his flank as a needle jammed into his skin and emptied it’s contents into his body. Screams retreated into whimpers as the pain faded into a dull ache, his body becoming sluggish and slow moving. Through the mist he realised that Jackdaw had overdosed him on Med-x, numbing his entire body instead of localized pain. Snaps sighed internally. Well it was better than feeling the wing pain, but he wouldn't be traveling anywhere until his body metabolized some of the potion. He wearily rolled his eyes up to Jackdaw’s worried and frantic face, winking one of them slowly to show he was okay and not dying, despite how he looked. His tongue felt hot and swollen in his mouth and his eyes drifted closed as sleep overwhelmed him. * * * Consciousness seeped back into Snaps, along with the pain. Groggily, he shifted slowly across the burnt earth to the medical chest in the wagon, and slipped out a syringe, plunging it into the base of his wing and squeezing out the correct amount this time. Sighing in relief as the fire in his wing faded, Snaps sat down to think. It was very late in the evening, Jack had dozed off next to the fire, opened bean cans stacked neatly next to him. Knowing that the Med-x was just suppressing his appetite, Snaps forced himself to open a can of peaches, the preserved fruit slimy on his tongue. Gulping down the nectar, he leaned back and suppressed a burp, his stomach feeling tight after not eating for a full day. Thoughtfully, he looked down at his mangled wing. The pain would only get worse as the infection set in, and then it would start to rot, poisoning his blood and eventually killing him. The only other option outside of a miracle, he thought, was to cut it off. Strangely, Snaps felt calm. His mind wasn’t screaming at the thought of hacking off his beloved wing, it was like he didn’t feel anything. So this is what shock was like. He couldn’t cut it off himself though. He leaned walked over to the wagon, and gathered what he needed. “Jack.” “Jack.” Louder this time. “JACK.” Jack startled awake, his hoof jerking out and knocking over the can pile he had made. Bleary, sleepy eyes focused on Snaps. “What are you doing up? You should be resting!” Jack scooted over to him, wincing as he looked away from his wing. Snaps looked calmly at the shaky stallion, his eyes a cooler blue then normal. Maybe it was the drugs, but his mouth felt like it belonged to someone else as he uttered his next words. “I need you to cut my wing off.” Jack stared at him, the colour draining from his face, his mouth agape. He made as if to talk, but only a squeak came out. “Please.” Snaps lifted the medical tin and began to methodically set out the equipment onto the fire blanket, muscle memory from setting up experiments in his lab making the tools neat and tidy. The blanket made a small crinkle noise as he set each one down. Disinfectant. Crinkle. Super strength restoration potion. Crinkle. Med-x. Crinkle. Bandages. Crinkle. Tape. Crinkle. Tourniquet. Crinkle. Mouthwash. Crinkle. Scalpel. Crinkle. Hacksaw. Crinkle. “No.” Jack was shaking his head. “There has to be another way.” Snaps mind was as placid as a frozen lake as he stared the handsome stallion down. “Either you cut off my wing now, we get off this mountain and find a way back into the stable. Or you don’t, and the infection that has already started gets worse, poisons my blood and I die right here, while we eat up our precious supplies. Your choice.” Snaps sighed, putting his hoof over Jacks. “I cant reach my wing to get a clean cut. I need you to do this for me.” “But my horn… I cant…” “Use your mouth. We have hospital grade mouthwash.” Snaps turned, sloshing disinfectant over a stone and his wing. Laying down next to the rock, he spread his wing up over it, turning his head to once again stare at the shocked Jackdaw. “I need your help, Jack. Please.” Stiffly, Jack walked over to the pile of tools, looking at Snaps with eyes that almost couldn’t believe what he was doing. “What..” his voice croaked and died. “What do I do?” Once again feeling like his mouth was moving on its own, Snaps began to talk Jackdaw through the procedure. It was a fairly simple procedure, so easy to remove the thing that allowed him the freedom to fly. “First, disinfect your hooves and mouth. There are gloves in the medical box, put them on then wrap the tourniquet around my wing.” he watched as Jackdaw moved slowly to his instructions, reluctance in every single step. “Pull it tighter, you want to cut off the blood supply.” Jackdaw looked down at him, worry almost aging his chiseled features. Pulling his face into smile that was fooling nobody, Snaps tried to look as reassuring as possible. Jack sighed and picked up the scalpel, moving over to Snapdragons wing. Snaps took one last look at his once beautiful wing. The pale blue feathers, all bent and broken, blood matted in between them. The skin was bound to the rock, tugging and pulling as his muscles shifted, angry red and leaking pus. He felt the tourniquet dig into his skin, creating a horrible pressure on his wing. His beautiful, precious and now deadly wing. Snaps inhaled, his slender chest expanding with the breath he needed to say the next words. “Do it.” There was no pain, Jackdaw kept him topped up on the Med-X as he used the scalpel to slice through skin, veins and ligament. Snaps could feel each cut, a strange and invasive feeling. Small snapping feelings radiated down his wing as each layer was sliced through. Blood ran in small rivers down the rock, staining his fur and Jack’s muzzle. There was a scrape. “I’ve hit the bone.” Jackdaw said, spitting the scalpel out and picking up the hacksaw. “Can you see the joint?” Snaps asked, not willing to turn around and see what had become of his beautiful wing. “Cut just below it.” “Roger.” Jackdaw was in full concentration mode now, his eyes focused solely on the important task before him. Snaps could feel the intensity radiating off him, and took comfort in it. Closing his eyes, he began to list off his favourite flowers, trying to avoid hearing the sound of the hacksaw, and ignore the grating feeling of it slicing through his bone, the pain radiating even through the haze of drugs. It was a deep, burning pain, as if it came from far away. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it ended. As if a great weight was lifted from his side, Snaps tipped over onto the crispy dirt, sprawling onto his remaining wing. He looked down at his side, seeing himself drenched once more in blood, but now instead of soft feathers, there was only a bloody stump. He moaned, closing his eyes and fighting down vomit as he barked out the last of his orders. “Pour half the restoration potion over it, then bandage it up, just like you were taught in first aid.” The small amount of pain ebbed from his side as the potion closed the wound, and Snaps guzzled the rest of it. The potion tasted clammy and slimy down his throat, his body still feeling alien, even more so now that his sense of balance was thrown off. It would take a few weeks to heal fully as they had to preserve their medical supplies, but it would heal cleanly now. He lowered his head to the ground, tears staining his beautiful blue fur as his body shook with sobs. He was now a demi-wing, a flightless bird. A groundwalker. Bandaging complete, he felt his body shift as Jack laid down next to him, tenderly laying a hoof over his flank and pulling him close. “Are you in pain?” “No.” “Do you want some water?” “No.” Silence fell upon them, their breathing in quiet tandem, as they simply took comfort in each others presence. The night fell around them, eerily silent in the wasteland. No birds, no insects, not even the familiar whine of the stable lights that had been present his whole life. Just himself, Jackdaw and a tight bandage around his midsection, holding his stump against his body. And a thickening lump against his flank. His body reflexively stiffened and he pulled away from Jack, who flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry. I don’t know why it happened.” Jack mumbled, shifting himself over to the camp and covering himself with a blanket, his face red and dark in the fading light. “I’ll just start the fire. You should eat.” “Eating. Right.” Snapdragon flopped back down to the dirt, his mind racing. That was an erection. Jackdaw got an erection while holding him. Did that mean Jack desired him? Why now? Why when he was covered in blood and tears? Was it an accident, like he said? A natural reaction to the loneliness of the wasteland? Snaps put his hooves over his head and squeezed his eyes shut. This was too much right now. The smell of beans cooking wafted past his nose and he began to drag his exhausted body over to the fire. “Hey, you stay there. I’ll bring this to you” Jack had recomposed himself and was spooning beans into a bowl. “I’ll bring you to the fire myself after you’ve eaten. You shouldn't be moving around too much tonight.” Snaps opened his mouth to argue, only to close it again as weariness set over him. It was too much. Too much right now to deal with. Jackdaw settled in front of his muzzle, the hint of unwashed muskiness and blood causing Snap’s nose to twitch. He couldn’t even imagine how he smelled. They both needed a bath, but until they found more water to purify, they had to just put up with it. Awkwardly, Jack lifted the spoon of beans to Snaps’s mouth, still unused to the lack of magic. The warm beans filled his mouth, but for some reason Snaps couldn’t bear to swallow them. His throat simply wouldn't perform the simple act of swallowing a simple mouthful of humble beans! Jack looked at him, concern in his eyes. “Not good?” Turning, Snaps spat the beans out, pulling his canteen to him and drinking. Swishing around his mouth, he cleaned it of the feel of the beans. “I don’t know. I just cant eat right now. I think,” Snaps swallowed, “I think I need to be alone.” “Oh. Alright.” Moving back to the fire, Jackdaw slumped onto the ground, facing away from him. Snaps scooted himself closer to the fire, guilt gnawing at his insides while he looked at the broad muscles on Jack’s back. He wanted to reach out to him, run his hoof through the smooth fur. The feeling at his side was overwhelming. He just felt so wrong now his wing was missing, it felt like a hole had been torn in his heart. Closing his eyes, Snaps began to recall the feel of flying, hot tears slipping from his eyes.
