Chapter 3

Caravans and memories

BANG. BANG. BANG.

A series of explosions rattled my door. Who the fuck is throwing grenades? I thought, shaking my head and looking around in confusion. After a few moments the ringing in my ears subsided, and I lifted the glass of pickle juice to my lips, thankful I had prepared it.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The “explosions” turned out to be some pony who really, really wanted to talk to me. Who in their right mind would be up at… I scratched my head as I lifted myself up from where I sat. wait, what time is it? Whatever. I trotted to the door and opened it. In front of me stood Crone, in his guard barding.

“Wow, you look like a carpet from a room at the Bhramin’s bachelor party.” Classy as always, Crone.

“Feels that way too. Come in.” I sat on the couch in the middle of the room, and levitated the remainder of yesterday’s dinner to me. Can’t say he looked much better, messy mane bags under his eyes… Sweet Celestia Crone! What have you been up to? “What brings you here so early?”

“Well, remember that homeless pony from yesterday?” Actually, that was the part that I tried to forget. he trotted to the couch looking around my room like it was full of criminal ready to attaack him. I guess some habits never die. “Our sergeant is interested in finding out what happened. So I was wondering if you remembered anything since last evening?”

“Didn’t you say that they won’t allow you to investigate this?” I raised my eyebrow, finishing my ‘breakfast’.

“Well, not officially, no. But since this is a bit of an unusual case, a few of us decided to look into it off duty.” Of course, you did. I'm pretty sure that the pegasi would open up the skies before you'd drop the case you're working on.

“Which is why you’re wearing that barding right now and questioning me on behalf of some ‘sergeant’ instead of yourself. Right.” Come on, Crone I know that something is up. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. I put my hooves together, and prepared to listen.

“Listen… we don’t have a lot of free time, so we have to occasionally go on patrol and check the city for unwelcome elements. Especially in the wake of recent events.” He smiled and sat next to me. “So what can you tell me about him?”

“Not much.” I shrugged “Bumped in to him near the armoury, he muttered some crap about ‘destroying the town’ and that’s about it.” Crone’s face took a stern expression.

“And what were you doing around the armoury?” Well… fuck. I walked right into that one.

“Moonlight told me I could find something interesting regarding the job I did recently.”

“And?” He gave me an intent look.

“And the only thing I found was that pony, who was killed.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit suspicious?”

I sighed and shook my head. “Kind of. Maybe… I don’t know! There are more pressing matters at hoof that I need to attend to, than some hobo murdered in the backstreets.“ Crone suddenly stood up, his eyes flaring with anger.

“He was an innocent pony who was brutally murdered. I don’t care if he was a hobo or Celestia herself, he deserves justice!” Suddenly I was very happy that looks kill. And deep down, I knew he was right.

“I… I’m sorry. It was a tough week and…” I shuddered as I felt his hoof on my shoulder.

“Maybe it would be easier for me to understand if you actually told me what happened?” Worry and concern radiated from him. Well, it’s been decided then. If any pony deserved to know, it was him.

“Yes, I guess I should.” I took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “Let’s talk later. I have some errands to run, and I want to reflect on what happened. Come here after your evening patrol, and we’ll talk. Alright?” After a few seconds he nodded with a soft smile.

“Alright, if that’s comfortable for you.” He slowly stood up and went to the door, his steps a bit shaky. “Well, I need to get back to my post. Thank you for the information. See you around.” And with that, he was gone.

Fuck, what exactly did I need to do today? I was about to put on my new barding as I noticed an envelope lying on the table. Oh, right! I never bothered to open it, did I? Well, now is as good a time as any.

The envelope looked nice and clean, with neat hoofwriting on the front. Which was very unusual for the wasteland. I opened it, unfolding a neatly folded piece of paper.

Miss Midnight Eclipse,

We, Velvet Caravans, have heard a lot of your skills and professionalism. As such, we would like to offer you a job within our organization as a caravan guard. If interested, please contact our agent at the caravan meeting grounds tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Fountain P.

Personnel Manager, Velvet Caravans.

What? Since when did they start hiring random drifters from the street? I know Nomads did, but Velvets? I swear, if it’s Crone again, I’m going to have some words with him. Anyway, work is work I guess, might as well see what’s it about.

The caravan place, or ‘ The Bhramin’s pit’, as the locals like to call it, was right next to the market. I noticed a couple shops were still closed despite it being almost noon. Odd. Walking past a huge “Lunar Plaza” sign that nobody bothered to remove since pre-war times, I noticed a familiar looking unicorn right next to a pair of traders.

“Ace’s caravan?” I asked, trotting up to them.

The yellow earth pony smiled at me, “Ah, you must be Midnight Eclipse,” I nodded. “Yes, that nice guard told me about you. I’m Ace, and this is my wife Aurora.” Light blue unicorn with turquoise mane, waved her hoof at me. “See, we’re going to make a trip to a Safe Harbor, and the rumor has it that it isn’t as, well… safe recently. So we thought hiring a couple extra guns would be a good idea.”

I thought about it for a second. “Yes, I heard a couple caravans ran into some trouble around those parts recently. What kind of goods are you delivering?”

“A little bit of everything.” The unicorn mare replied with a soft smile. “Food, ammunition, guns, general supplies.” She gestured her hoof at the crates behind them. “Maybe it’s not as fancy as some of the stuff you can find out there, but it gets the job done. And, for a fair price.”

“I see...” I tapped my chin thinking. This was one of the “scrap” caravans that gained popularity recently. Jobs for them rarely paid well, but at the same time raiders tend to target them a lot less often. “How many guards will there be besides me?”

“Ray over there,” She nodded at the grey unicorn, “And that viridian Earth pony…”

“Lily? I didn’t know she was in town.”

“Yes, her. And hopefully, you. We think that should be enough to deal with most of the problems our caravan might encounter.”

“Good. But before I give you the final answer, I need to know how much you pay.” A Sudden crunch from behind caused me to spin around. A few others around me did the same, but the majority seemed completely ignorant of the sound. “Did you hear that?” I asked turning back to my to-be employers.

“Yes.” Ace nodded, shrugging. “Probably some brahmin or a defective cart. With this many ponies around I would be more surprised if there weren’t any weird sounds.”

He sounded pretty reasonable, but the feeling of unease was refusing to leave me.

“Anyway, back to my question…”

“Yes, of course!” He nodded enthusiastically, “We’re paying a thousand caps after reaching our destination. Or, its equivalent in our merchandise. Does this sound fair to you?”

Hm… better than I expected. But still, with only three guards they could do better. “Fifteen hundred. You said that the road is more dangerous than usual, and yet you plan to bring only three guards. So if I’m going to risk my head, I want it to be worth it.”

“Miss Midnight!” Ace’s eyes widened, as his wife gasped covering her mouth with the hoof. “I understand that you need money, and your job is quite risky, but please understand that we also need to make some profit! How about twelve hundred? And if we will be in need of a guard again, we promise to ask for your services again.”

“Deal! When are we moving out?”

“Tomorrow morning. Will you be ready by then?”

“Yes,” I nodded, “I’ll meet you here, first thing in the morning.” I started to trot away, when I remembered, “Do you by any chance know where Lily is right now?”

Aurora shook her head, “Nope, she said that she needs to finish some preparations this morning, and we haven’t seen her since.”

“Alright, see you tomorrow.” Well, all that’s left to do is to get my reward from Striker, and sleep for the rest of the day.

***

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Can’t say that knocking on my door was my favourite way to wake up, but at least it wasn’t as bad as today’s morning. I stood up. The room was even more of a mess than I remember it. Empty boxes and bags were scattered across it, and the room looked more like a junkyard, rather than a place where somepony lives. And I’m not talking about the bar. The only thing that was clean, intact and carefully packaged were my weapons and barding. Well, except the remainder of my dinner, and a very expensive looking, sealed deck of cards that was laying next to the large revolver. Crafter might be a grade A cunt, but he’s reliable when it comes to payment.

I opened the door.

“Midnight?” Wait, Crone? What the… Oh, right. Fuck, I completely forgot about this. I nodded to him and sat on my couch and levitated a bottle of Wild Pegasus from the fridge. “I see it’s still not a good time to…”

“There’s never going to be a good time, Crone.” I sighed as amber liquid filled the glass. “And I really need to talk about it with somepony. It’s just… hard.” I winced, feeling a wing touching my shoulder.

“It’s alright, take your time.” He sat right next to me, and I could almost feel his eyes on me. Well, it’s now or never.

“On the last job, we went on our route as usual, the road was clear. However, Grifter asked me to retrieve a case from some ruins. It seemed simple enough, and he said that the place was abandoned.” I take a shot. A feeling of warmth spreads across my body, as I try to gather my thoughts. “As you can guess, that wasn’t the case. I asked to change the route, so it would go closer to the ruins. Thankfully, we weren’t too far from it. I wanted to go there at night during our stop, and Rose insisted on joining. Somehow she knew something was up, and tried…” A loud sob interrupted my story, apparently I didn’t notice that I had been crying. Fuck, that’s not what I wanted right now. “There were a couple of slavers… who trapped the place up and… well, I returned alone.” I took a long sip straight from the bottle. Argh, I’m going to regret this.

“I see, well, that explains a lot. But do you really think drinking will help you deal with it?”

“Oh, fuck off! I don’t need your fucking… whatever the fuck it is!” The audacity of this fucker!

“Midnight, I’m worried about you! You’ve clearly been through a lot lately, and I think you need help.”

“I want to quit, Crone.”

“Uhh... quit what?”

“This. Everything! Quit putting myself under fire to save another greedy asshole. Quit doing side jobs for backstabbing fuckers. Quit always getting involved in shit that has nothing to do with me! Just quit.” I took another sip. Future me probably hates the present me with a burning passion. But it’s that bitch’s problem. “I just want to settle down, have a nice home, maybe even a family. Just a normal quiet life. But, it seems, it’s too much to ask in this goddesses forsaken world!” The long silence made me wonder if Crone had left during my tirade. Can’t blame him, if that’s the case. I know I would leave too.

“Why won’t you do that then?” Oh! Still here. Good. Probably...

“Money. I have a decent amount, but how long will that last? Just buying an apartment would cost a fortune. And before you ask, no. I won’t stay in this shithole. Here there are way too many smug asshoes who will stab you in the back for a bottle of vodka.” I finally managed to look directly at him. “I just want some peace and quiet. That’s all.” I closed my eyes, and felt like something soft and fuzzy touch my head. I think Crone was saying something. I muttered something in response. The last thing I remember is laying my head on something warm. Then came the darkness.

Author's Note

Well it took me way longer than it should but procrastination and real life both can be quite a bitch sometimes. Well regardless I hope that the wait was worth it, and you will enjoy reading this chapter.
Huge thanks to Kkat for creating this amazing world. And special thanks to Heartshine Who help a lot during the "planning stage" and helping with some editing. Also this time I got a huge help with editing this chapter from Puffy and Dijit both making incredible art and music respectively, so make sure to check out their stuff. Thank you for reading and hopefully next chapter will be finished faster than 7 months