Fallout Equestria: Stable 73

Bitsy scooped a hoof-ful of snow into the canister she held, the ancient pipbuck tied on her belt clacking madly in the cold wind. An eerie, mournful howl rippled distantly through the air around her, and she quickly tucked the canister back into the pockets of her suit. Her nose was feeling numb, but she had to collect one more sample before she could go back to safety. Counting softly, she scooped another few hooves of snow into a new canister, her hoof beginning to burn from the radiation poisoning even through the protective layers of the rad-snowsuit. The howl surrounded around her again, closer this time and pale, glowing snow began to fall. It left small smoking marks on her clothes, and the rad-meter in her pipbuck began clicking faster, the little arrow rising quickly into the red. Slogging her hooves through the snow, Bitsy began to hobble back to the crevasse in the cliff face that hid the entrance to their stable, casting fearful glances behind her. That howl meant a blizzard was on its way, its crest ridden by the fearsome creatures of nightmare, Wendigos. She could see the clouds billowing and darkening rapidly, moving unnaturally fast against the sky blanket. These were not the beings of the silly foal tales the elders spun to thrill and scare, but real, undead monsters that even the bravest warrior fled from.

The wendigos of old were like a spring summer day compared to what awaited the stable ponies within the howling storms. These creatures were half formed from snow and ice, irradiated and foul, skin hanging from skeletal bodies. Their unseeing, glowing eyes seeking out new prey as they pranced through the howling blizzards, fading in and out of existence like some ghostly mirage. The blizzards surrounding the Crystal Mountains were not tame, pretty tufts of clouds like in foals storybooks, with hoof crafted snowflakes gently cascading down. They were screaming, rumbling swathes of black and grey nothingness blanketing all in sight with necromantic, radioactive snow that burned to the touch. Getting caught in a Crystal Mountain blizzard wasn't just death, your soul would be absorbed into the ice, trapped in the vortex of hatred and misery that fed the unending appetite of the Wendigo swarm. It would never end, and there was no escape.

Needless to say, Bittersweet Cider ran like Nightmare Moon herself was behind her, tripping and stumbling through the deep snow drifts that built up at the bottom of the mountain. She could see the dark, wrapped form of Peppermint standing by the shielded stable entrance, her bundled up head turning to and fro, frantically searching the building storm for her friend.

“Minty!” Bitsy cried out, falling down in the snow. She shouldn’t have been out so late, the storms always came at night, as if the Wendigos knew that there were ponies hiding in the depths of the mountains. She had to get the samples right before dark, the Professor wanted to test to see if the necromantic properties spiked at dusk, and she was his assistant. It was her job.

“Bitsy!” Came the response, and the dark figure vanished back into the cave. Bitsy could feel the cold leeching the movement from her legs as she flailed about in the snow, but she knew that rescue was coming. She just had to hope the blizzard didn’t arrive before her friends did. Anger and fear began to gnaw at her belly, the wendigos were close. Their arrival was always heralded by a deep and primal fear. The older ponies said it was a call back to the days before Equestria, when the lands were covered by ice fueled by the three tribes hatred. It was how the Wendigo hoard spread.

Hooves scraped at her sides, and Bitsy felt her sluggish body being lifted into the backs of the Plower brothers. Relief surged through her, and she closed her eyes against the tingle of passing through the protective blue shield that held the worst of the weather at bay, the storm nipping at their hooves. Raising her head wearily, she could see the wendigos smashing their frail bodies against the force field that protected the entrance the their stable with wet thuds, they had only just made it in time. The twins must have run like hell to get her back before the storm hit. One of the creatures pressed its skull right against the field, its glowing eye staring right through her with clear malice. Its mouth opened against the shield, biting uselessly against it. drool and black ichor spattered across the thrumming magical shield. Bitsy shivered and turned away, wrapping her hooves tighter against Durk’s neck. The beast almost looked like her momma, who had been lost to the storms long ago. Durk knelt down, slipping her off him.

“What were you thinking?” Minty’s voice cracked with fearful sobs, her hooves peeling off the heavy snowsuits. “You could have died, or worse!”

“I’m sorry!” Bittersweet’s poofy mane cascaded out from under the helmet, surround her like a cloud. “The professor has been testing the snow, he thinks if we can monitor when it’s at its worst then we can open the pass for more than an hour! Just think, we could actually bring trade here instead of going all the way to the nearest town.”

Durk’s shaggy head shook, the earth pony looking at her with a soulful eye. “I don’t think so, Bitsy. Ponies ain't gonna wanna bring them wagons up through snow that melts the wheels.” Dayle, his twin brother, nodded solemnly, shaking the snow off his suit. It was warmer in the cave, the mysterious pale blue shield that protected their stable thrummed with its own heat and light.

“He’s right, you know.” Minty took one of Bitsy’s leathery wings in her mouth, spreading it to massage life back into the cold membrane. “Iss ‘nuff we haff tra’ a’ all.”

Sighing in pleasure at her friend’s gentle touch, Bitsy leaned over and spread Minty’s wing to do the same back. She could still taste the fear radiating from her friend, even though the blue force field kept most of the negative effects of the Wendigos at bay. She knew that trade was the best way to help their stable thrive, and it was the Professor who would help them put stable seventy three on the map as a thriving marketplace. She just wished her friends could see that.