Fallout Equestria: Chasing Paradise

Chapter 6. Trotting in A Winter Wonderland

I’ve never been colder in my entire life.

There’d been mornings in the Stable where I felt chilled to the bone, unsure how the temperature would drop so low, but now after seeing the world immediately outside our shelter I understood why it would routinely become so frozen. A small cackling fire was my only source of warmth. I felt a pang of guilt pulling rotted bedding and pieces off of a wooden end table to fuel the fire, but I needed every bit of warmth to keep from freezing. With the blizzard still ripping the sky apart I had nothing better to do but sit and sort through my bags. The automatic sorting system on my PipBuck brought up the contents of my saddlebags. Shuffling through I noticed that a good bit of food and other things I’d taken with me had fallen out and disappeared into the blizzard. I’ll just have to wait out the storm before checking if anything is left. For now I decided to take a walk through the remnants of the house I’d picked as an impromptu home base.

Much of the wallpaper had been torn and ruined, paint cracked and peeling, and a plethora of debris covered the floors. The sounds of creaking wood from the poorly maintained floors blended seamlessly with the howling of the wind rocking the building on it’s poor foundations. Many of the house’s supports had cracked or toppled, leaving the building rickety and uncertain of it’s footing. The floor was covered in paper and scraps of a different time, most of it indistinguishable from the floor itself.

Hard Liquor. I had decided to check the kitchen in hopes of food, to which I had not found any, but I did find a lot of alcohol. Whoever lived here had a taste for Whiskey and Gin and the fridge sported a good five bottles of each. Most of them were half empty but a couple bottles of Whiskey were still sealed. The only other food items in the kitchen was a box of apple flakes. Sweet, 200 year old cereal. I stuffed it into my bags regardless and continued further into the house.

The living room and adjacent bedrooms were mostly empty and sported little more than rotting furniture and scrap. The second floor was a little more intact than the floor under it. Furniture hadn’t been as rotted through and the floor was mostly visible. One bedroom looked like it was last occupied by a colt. Posters covered most of the walls in the small room. Most of the posters were torn or faded but a few remained. A few had been rolled up and kept in plastic tubes, which had somehow managed to survive the ages. I unrolled one and five ponies looked back at me: A yellow-green pegasus mare, a white unicorn stallion, a blue earth pony stallion, a red-brown pegasus stallion, and another white unicorn mare. Massive buildings covered the night sky behind it, stars twinkling alongside yellow glows from many of the windows of the glass behemoths. Baltimare’s Finest was painted across the entire skyline of the poster.

Baltimare. I slipped the poster into my bag for reference and made my way into the other bedrooms. Another room, most likely for a middle aged mare, and a master bedroom. The master had a large closet with a few old outfits. I pushed them aside and walked into the walk-in closet. At the back end was a safe which was embedded into the wall. I tried it, which not to my surprise, was locked. I left the safe and continued into the attic. My PipBuck light brought the dark attic into view. Most of it was obscured by boxes which stood almost to the roof in some spots. I shuffled around the boxes and through the tiny attic. At the end was a small workshop, still adorned with many tools and machines I had no real clues about. A few tools did stand out to me however, one of which was a screwdriver, which I promptly scooped up and into my bag. At least I now had a way of digging into that safe in the master bedroom. Alongside the workshop stood a terminal which had apparently survived the apocalypse. It’s screen gave off a faint green glow as it was brought back to life. Only a few entries had been written in it. The wind whipped at the window sat above the workshop, signaling that I had plenty of time before I could brave the outside again. I pulled up the first entry and began to read.

Entry 14:

The winter has been rough on us this year. Other pony folk have been saying this “Global warmin” has been making the colds colder and the hots hotter. I don’t quite believe them folk but I definitely think that this smog is killin’ my lungs. Hopefully the kids don’t have to breathe this their whole lives. Speakin of kids, a couple fillies came to have a playdate with lil’ Cobalt today. They couldn’t be anything more than a couple years older than him but they’ve both got their Cutie Marks already. I could tell Cobalt wasn’t all too happy ‘bout that but he seemed happy to have someone to spend time with. Ruby Flower was holed up in her room again today. She’s been hiding in there for Celestia knows how long, only comin’ out for food. I tried to talk to her but she locked her door and wouldn’t open up for nopony...

I considered the one room with a little ruby on the door that I had passed downstairs and made a note to see what had become of the girl.

Entry 35:

It’s been some time since I last wrote on one of these new fancy machines. My therapist keeps tellin’ me I should be writing about my life, supposedly it helps with depression. If anything the medication should do it, but sometimes I’m not too sure. I think the Wartime Stress Disorder is getting worse. I should go into a clinic and get some help. They’ll know how to help me. Work’s been really getting to me. I don’t like all this manufacturing of weapons to kill other creatures. I don’t buy all this propaganda that the Zebras are all bad, I knew quite a few back in my hayday when things were simpler. I wonder where they’re at these days… hopefully not dead.

Entry 40:

Went to the local clinic today. They’re sayin’ I definitely have this Wartime Stress Disorder. They want me to come in again as soon as possible to start treatment. I really hope this works, ‘cause I think I’m startin’ to scare my wife.

I clicked the terminal off and got up from the cold floor, brushing my legs to get some warmth back into them. I made off to the master bedroom so I could have a crack at the wall safe. On my way there I stopped to look into the room belonging to the mare named Ruby Flower. The room was surprisingly clean. In fact it had seemed as though it had been recently lived in. I looked through the nightstand and found a leather-bound pouch with a bunch of bottlecaps in it. I don’t know why somepony would collect bottlecaps but Ruby Flower did seem like an oddball from what I’d read. I left the pouch in the end table and kept looking around. A box sat under the bed and I pulled it out to see what it contained. A bunch of photos and other nicknacks lay neatly placed inside and I picked up the photos and began to fan through them. All of the photos were of a family doing many different activities. A blue and red stallion and mare respectively, who I assumed were the parents of Cobalt and Ruby Flower were standing side by side, with Cobalt standing beside his mother, their contrasting blue and red colors matching that of Ruby and her father. Cobalt and her parents are absolutely beaming but Ruby was looking down with a look of discomfort on her face. She didn’t seem to be the most photogenic of ponies. Their family seemed to get out a lot from the looks of the first few photos. Among them were many shots in the wilderness, with one of them being familiar. It was the lake beside the hill where our Stable had been built.

The photos became more and more sparse as I went through them. The dates on the first 10 or so were very close together but the later 10 were spaced out. The ponies had also noticeably grown older. I placed the photos back into the box in the order I’d pulled them out in and turned around to get up and was greeted with a handgun pointed at my face. Behind the pistol I could make out a middling sized pony who’s red coat had become warped and discolored. It was covered in spots and patches of green radioactive ooze. My PipBuck began to click at me as the pony thing came closer.

“Give me a reason not to shoot you right now.” A warped and unusually deep female voice came from the pony zombie who had me held at gunpoint. I was stunned into silence as I looked up into her eyes. One had glazed over and I was unsure if she was blind in one eye or not.

I stammered out a poor response to the mare “I… I didn’t do anything wrong, please don’t shoot.” She hesitated, looking over my bags and outfit.

“Unarmed, out here? You’re a fool.” The mare brought the pistol back to her side, her red magic glow not quite red, most likely from whatever happened to her. She looked me over once again. “Stable dweller.” She contemplated a moment before walking around me to see the number printed on the back. “37.” She seemed stunned by the numbers written in front of her. “You’re from Stable 37?” She was dumbfounded by the look on her face and the sound of her voice.

“Ye… yes?” I responded back, equally dumbfounded by her appearance. “Some evil pony ponies with guns came and attacked us, we were forced to go looking for a new place to survive since the Stable wasn’t safe anymore.” She listened to my words with an uneasy expression on her face.

“So you’re from Stable 37? The one only a short trot from here?” I simply nodded my head in response. “I’ll be damned. Ponies really did survive in there, then?” I nodded again. Her expression became pained and then frantic. “Tell me. Did a colt named Cobalt ever live in the Stable?”

“I don’t know.” I paused a moment, feeling sad for the mare. Before I had the chance to ask another question I was hit by an epiphany. “Why do you know about Cobalt? He lived 200 years ago.” The ruby mare looked at me with a look of disbelief.

“So did I.” Was her only response. Firm and with confidence. I wasn’t quite sure if she was just insane or if the radiation had rotted her brain.

“How is that possible? Ponies don’t live that long and the bombs would have killed you anyway.”

She rolled her eyes before giving me a response. “They should have-” She put a strong emphasis on should. “But they didn’t, and now we’re here. We’re called ghouls. And not all of us are so friendly.”

“A ghoul? So you’re telling me that you’ve been alive since before the bombs?” This time she simply nodded in turn.

“So answer the question. Did Cobalt ever live in Stable 37?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t alive that long ago.” My heart went out to the reclusive mare. She was left out in the wasteland of Equestria for hundreds of years like this and her only concern was her little brother. Blood runs deep I suppose. Did ghouls even have blood? I didn't want to ask.

The mare looked down at the floor and I was reminded of the photos I’d just looked through. I got up and embraced the mare. She was uncomfortably squishy and smelled rancid, I was glad she couldn’t see my face, but I held her anyway. “I’m sorry Ruby. I’m so sorry that this happened to you. You didn’t deserve this. Nopony would ever deserve this.” She didn’t cry, but I was unsure if ghouls could even cry, so I continued to hold her. As I stepped back she looked up at me.

“This world isn’t kind to ponies. It swallows them and leaves nothing left. Not even bones. It’s not a place for the uninitiated, and most ponies run in fear of us ghouls. We don’t really have the best reputation. I just hope that Cobalt made it into the Stable. He wouldn’t survive a day out here.” She pulled open the nightstand and pulled out the pouch of bottlecaps and put them in her bag. She noticed my look of confusion and answered the question on my lips. “Wastes don’t really use currency like the old world did. We use caps now. Easier to get around than those heavy golden bits. Ponies livin’ in the prissy world do still pass them around though.” I felt the weight of the bits in my bag, considering just how much they actually weighed.

“I suppose you’re right.” Ruby trotted past me towards the door. “Where are you going?”

Ruby turned back to answer. “To the living room. Why so paranoid?” I considered her words and brought up a hoof to respond. I lowered my hoof and closed my mouth with nothing to say in response. Why am I so paranoid? Perhaps because she had me at gunpoint a few minutes ago? Yeah that’d do it. I decided to just follow along, longing for the warmth of the small fire I assumed had gone out by now.

Apparently Ruby had been tending to it while I explored. “You should get some sleep.” Ruby ushered to a rotted mattress with a somewhat clean blanket draped over it. “There’s no way you’re going back out there.” She had a very good point.

According to Ruby it was coming up on nighttime, which was not immediately obvious to me as the blizzard was still strongly blowing outside. I cozied up, to the best of my ability, on the little cot and closed my eyes. “So do you also plan on sleeping or?” I didn’t hear her stir but when I opened my eyes she was sitting right in front of me, looking directly at me. I jumped a bit as she leaned forward to look directly into my eyes. I tried not to breathe through my nose as she got close but didn’t try to repel from her. She looked into my eyes, never seeming to blink, before sitting back up.

“We don’t sleep.” I assume she meant ghouls. She remained silent for the rest of the night.