Fallout: Equestria - Wicked

by Shukin

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Crossover, Alternate Universe
Length: 5475

A quest for knowledge and culture long-lost in-between a lots of caps.

"War. War never changes. In the brimstone hell of balefire bombs and radiation, the once pure lands of Equestria suffered more than anypony can think of over the most simple of sins: Greed. Greed over land, resources and lives brought the beautiful landscape to a premature end. Stories from beyond the Great War were lost as time and circumstances destroyed books and holotapes and, in the blink of an eye, thousands of years of knowledge was lost. But it wasn't, as some has predicted, the end of the world, but just a new beginning. Over the decades after the End, scavengers put everything they had in line for just a bit of knowledge and some caps. Old tales were retold and, over the radio, songs from a better time overcame the harshness of the wasteland for a young buck that, with a guitar strapped on his back and a radio on his ear, roamed the earth to just survive, quite a feat in Equestrian Wasteland."

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2011-12-25 16:23:38 UTC

Contractor

“War. War never changes. In the brimstone hell of balefire bombs and radiation, the once pure lands of Equestria suffered more than anypony can think of over the most simple of sins: Greed. Greed over land, resources and lives brought the beautiful landscape to a premature end. Stories from beyond the Great War were lost as time and circumstances destroyed books and holotapes and, in the blink of an eye, thousands of years of knowledge was lost. But it wasn’t, as some has predicted, the end of the world, but just a new beginning. Over the decades after the End, scavengers put everything they had in line for just a bit of knowledge and some caps. Old tales were retold and, over the radio, songs from a better time overcame the harshness of the wasteland for a young buck that, with a guitar strapped on his back and a radio on his ear, roamed the earth to just survive, quite a feat in Equestrian Wasteland.”

Fallout: Equestria – Wicked

Chapter 1: Contractor

The hat… Okay. A nice smile and fierce eyes… Can I do that? The worried pony in the mirror, with sweat over his brows and a locked jaw tells me no. I whip the sweat with a free hoof and, again, focus myself into smiling. Don’t forget to breath, I keep repeating to myself over a simple mantra. That’s stupid, the little pony in my head screamed, you can’t forget how to breathe! – Yeah, sure. I’m flipping nuts here, hyperventilating is the less of my problems right now. Three knocks on the metal plate that served as makeshift door and the grumped voice at the other side made me shiver in anticipation, “Five more minutes, kid.”

This is it, my first show, the time of my life. Well, it’s just a pub in the middle of nowhere, but it’s a start nowadays. I bit the Sparkle-Cola bottle and took a single sip, the carrot taste embracing my tongue and cleaning my throat. The cords vibrated with a single, magical stroke, their melody striking hurtfully in my ears. Tuneless, I thought while correcting the cord with one more turn of the tuning peg. I floated the guitar over my head, its strap circling my neck, and I took a deep breath, focusing myself in the voices.

While the great majority of the voices were drunk, there were some ponies there waiting for a good song. I had to deliver to them, somehow, or I wouldn’t get paid… It’s not funny to wander with an empty stomach, as I fruitlessly did the whole week before. The voices silenced themselves as the lighting lowered, a spotlight, sure made by an unicorn, hovered the black stallion’s head with a deep voice. With a cleaning of his own throat, every pair of eyes turned its attention to where I would be in moments. I’m clearly not ready for this.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, welcome to tonight’s show here at Hooves’: Booze, girls, music? We have it all, right at yours. We’re with a new attraction tonight, but don’t mind his appearance, the kid’s got future. Come over here, Sharp Note, the night’s yours.” Oh Celestia, he was talking about me. Don’t forget to breath, I repeated again, and took my first steps into the spotlight. My knees trembled as I stopped close to the microphone, hovering it close to my mouth, trying to work out my first words for the public. And my first impression is destroyed by the feedback, nearly deafening me. I shook my head, “Sorry ‘bout that. Ahem—Well, I’m… Sharp Note… As Mr. Jackpot already introduced me and… shoot… Well, I’m not good at this, let my music talk for me.”

***    ***    ***

“You’re not the best we’ve ever had, but it was close enough.” He handled me the coin sack, which I rapidly opened up and started counting the caps. It was fast enough for me to be not comfortable with it. “Hey, this is less than we’ve combined!” He only chuckled and walked away, mumbling something about not being good enough for the full payment. I stood there for a little longer than a minute, holding myself to don’t just hit him with a table and get over with it. Not worth it, I took a deep breath and went down the stairs. I took my time while walking to the bar of the big establishment, many faces turning to me and the guitar strapped to my back, countless comments floating through the whole place and, uncomfortably, a lot of them about me. Sinking my head into the counter, a groan is heard while a cute mare with the nicest smile slides me a cup.

“You’re pretty good, sugarcube.” She tried comforting me, I just groaned again. “That’s a pretty nice guitar you have, you know?”

“Yeah… Pa’s.” She got me talking too easily with that smile… And the whiskey, strong stuff. I took another sip and leaned my face into my hooves, looking at her with my throat burning.  Her scarlet eyes were pretty against her gray fur, and white bangs of her mane dropped in front of her face, the rest of it wrapped into a ponytail. “It’s a pre-war relic, actually. He always told me stories from beyond the crapsack world we’re in now, how this one guitar made so many ponies fascinated with its music. I’m just… you know... keeping the legend alive.”

“That’s pretty nice of you.” Again with the comforting. Was I so bad that I needed that many pats in the back? I drank the thought out of my mind. In the corner of my eye, a mare with a longcoat approached me, her face partially hidden by the tip of her hat. She put the five caps of the whiskey into the counter as she sit beside me. A huge uncomforting silence overtook the once friendly conversation until the barkeeper made her way to another costumer. Only then her voice reached my ears:

“You put up with a nice show, sir...”

“Sharp Note.” I complemented her. “I introduced myself at the start.” I threw a look that represented the whole lack of respect that I’ve felt at that moment at her. She didn’t notice. I fail, hard, at intimidation.

“It comes to my attention that this guitar of yours is in a great state,” her voice came out not much louder than whispers, and I had to curve my head in her direction just to make sense out of them, “and my contractor is interested into buying it. How mu—“

“Not for sale. Don’t bother asking.” I faced her, taking another sip. She pulled back a little, giving me a look onto her face before hiding herself again. Her eyes were… startlingly lifeless. I took another sip before resting the cup. She cleaned her throat before continuing.

“I’m sure my contractor will be pleasured with a… particular show of yours, even without the guitar in his possession.” She kept talking, showing another coin sack that by the look of it was full of caps, under the longcoat, strapped into her saddle. A shiny revolver too made its appearance, making me shiver. “You’ll be rewarded accordingly.”

“I’m… without choices, eh.” I pushed the counter, making myself on my hooves and I took another deep breath. What a night, I thought while taking my steps to the exit. The pony in my head was screaming for me to run, to save myself. I knew that I was going to die at that rate, but what could I do? That revolver looked pretty much accurate, as she would accurately put a bullet in my head. This is Haygas, what should I expect? Damn dumb idea of mine. Through the cracked asphalt, my hoofsteps echoed into the dark night, the nearly burned neon sign over the Hooves’ poorly illuminating my path while she followed me closely, guiding me with her own steps. I have to think fast. I’m not fast, that’s one, or strong, too. A weapon? I never had the money, Pa’s never taught me how to shoot, too.

Damn, he was a pretty good shooter, I’m sure he’d get out of this situation just fine. “Fuck… Why?” She didn’t quite understood my question, as no answer came. I made myself clearer: “Why are you doing this?” I heard chuckling behind me.

“My contractor wants the—“

“Cut out with the bullshit. Why are you going to kill me?” I hope this was clear enough.

“Kill you?” She chuckled a little more. That was getting on my nerves. “Why would I want to do that?”

… What?

“As I was saying, my contractor wants the guitar… Or, pretty much, every pre-war instrument. He’s a collector, and we need someone with the necessary knowledge to maintain those instruments. As you’re not going to depart from your guitar—“

“So you’re not going to kill me.”

“As I said earlier, no.”

“And you’re really going to pay me to just… play?” This was too good to be true.

“And, again… yes.”

I think it was expected that she would take a step back after I nearly jumped of raw happiness. Then I saw how strange I would look to her and tried to retain myself, clearing my throat and, with shame, extended my hoof for her to move along.  Awkward was certainly the right word to describe how I was feeling at that moment, even more when we got closer to the de facto gateway for The Saddle, the real point that made Haygas what it was. While still in Equestria territory, for some reason it wasn’t hit directly by any balefire bomb, some say it was the work of Mr. Hoof, the sole owner of the Clover casi—

“Here, take thish.” She interrupted my internal monologue with some kind of wallet in her mouth. I was baffled. She shook her head and spit it at my direction and, in shock, I stopped it mid-air to simply not hit me in the muzzle. “It’s your passport.”

“Wait, how do you want me to walk through The Saddle? What about those Securiponies?” I looked over her, to the five strange-looking robotic ponies over the gateway. Their legs were somehow bolted together into a single wheel, their faces replaced by a huge monitor with a Royal Guard face always turned at our direction. They were rather unsettling, but it was the machine guns strapped into their battle saddles that made me worry.

“That’s why you need the passport. Just behave and follow me.” She trotted calmly into their domain, defying those five behemoths of weaponry and lethality and, with the whirl of their machine guns, they focused their aims over the poor longcoated pony and… nodded, opening the gate and greeting her with an absurdly high voice. “WELCOME, MS. SPARKLE! WE HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR STAY!”

Sparkle? Like that… ministry or something? I’ve heard of that name earlier. A poster of some kind, I think. There were still many pre-war posters over every big settlement, and Haygas was pretty much intact, so it should be easy to find something like that. Sure, the only place of Haygas that I’ve went to was the Freeside, nothing quite intact over here. Following my… guide’s steps, I kept walking. The Securiponies, again, flared their machine guns, the noise by itself making me shiver and close my eyes for the impending shootout and…

“WELCOME, MS. RARITY! YOU LOOK WONDERFUL TODAY!”

…What?

It was understandable that complete silence again overtook our words while we crossed The Saddle, the shower of lighting and the sudden appearance of so many drunken ponies having the times of their lives and… I really should refrain myself from using this sentence, it’s getting dull.

The crossing of The Saddle was really turbulent, at least three good-looking ponies with stuck-up clothes bumped into me, only one of them noticing it and apologizing sluggishly. That’s why I don’t drink, I laughed to myself.

“We’re here.” She stated, finally looking up to the nice little sign written in what looked like blood. I was disgusted at the sight, but crossed the double doors anyway. The whole place smelled like cheap alcohol and sweat, it shouldn’t be the place for a mare with a sack so full. Some of the ponies, mostly earth ponies, clearly didn’t like the look on my face, as they kept staring at me while she verified her room with the griffon bartender. The purple-furred hoof signaled me to follow her, so I did.

The room wasn’t that bad, at least the smell was better. Two beds, muffled by time and use, were kept over each corner of the small room, each with its own corner table. The room was illuminated by three sources of light: Two lampshades and a ceiling lamp. I unsaddled my guitar and, carefully, propped it against one of the corners, taking out my own coat and I just threw myself into the beaten-up mattress, took a deep breath and, finally, relaxed.

So I heard a click, my ear twitched and my heart stopped. From the corner of my eye, the silver barrel of the revolver was clearly visible, and its working side pointed at my temple. It’s unnecessary to say how high I jumped, dropping like a bag of potatoes into the wood floor. She laughed, amused by my reaction, and uncocked the revolver.

“What was that for?!” I screamed, with reason.

“You must never be unprepared, foalish pony,” She chuckled, taking off her own clothing while speaking like a teacher to her students. “For the risks of the wasteland are many.”

“And, for that, you need to give me a heart attack?!” I kept screaming.

“Again, it’s your own fault that you’re so startled.” She sat in her bed. I recomposed myself and, while staring at her with pure anger burning in my eyes, I returned to my relaxed position. She chugged a Sparkle-Cola from her own belongings and restarted the whole conversation. “You don’t look like a wanderer, but you’re clearly not from here either,” I just nodded. “Where are you from?”

I leaned my head into the not-so-confortable-but-good-enough pillow and looked at the ceiling, the old beige paint peeling off in cracks that ran through the walls and reached the strong-looking wood floor. “I’m from a place really far from here, from the other side of the country. Have you heard of The Republic?” She nodded, her eyes, for some reason, really far from here. “Not a bad place, you know, but it was too boring. I decided ‘Hey, why not?’, took my father’s guitar and… here I am…”

Before she could question the veracity of my story, I flipped to her side and looked at her, her beautiful black mane spread on the bed as she dropped lazily onto it. Quite a look, sure, but it wasn’t time to appreciate it: “What about you? I don’t even know your name or your contractor’s. What is it?”

She didn’t looked confortable while thinking about an answer. “I guess it’s the right thing to do, we’re gonna stay a lot of time together… I’m Stargaze.”

Wait. “What’s that ‘stay a lot of time together’? I thought it would be a simple show, wouldn’t it be?”

“Sure, it is. Over Tenpony Tower.”

Oh, come on! It took me a week of pure random luck to just get here, and she wants me to go back? I moved my hooves in protest, punching the air a few times while trying to formulate something to contest that to no avail. “Well… Okay then.”

My nerves finally settled in after agreeing with the huge trip, tonight’s show catching up with my tiredness and, yawning, I turned off my lampshade and flipped to the wall. “Well, Stargaze, I’m… tired. Good night.”

________________________________________

Footnote:

Tagged Skills: Repair, Barter, Sneak

Trait Added: Good-Natured (You studied less-combative skills as you were growing up. Your combat skills are 10% worse than usual, but your other skills are 15% better.)

Lvl. 1

S  P  E  C  I  A  L

3  6  4  7  6  5  9

Flight

Fallout Equestria: Wicked

Chapter 2: Flight

A dreamless night made me feel like I hadn’t slept at all. Last night, I saw myself dying at least twice, the harshness of Haygas catching up with me after so many times barely escaping it. Still lying down, I looked to the same cracks on the ceiling than yesterday. This place has seen so much of the lives of the ponies that I wonder how many others noticed this single crack, running from ceiling to floor, circling a window. Well, now it’s not a proper window, just  its old frame held in place by the rest of the wall that threatened to fall with a single strong blow of the radioactive wind.

Tired of staying put, I threw my head ahead, making my limp body keep up with the movement. A big yawn and a little stretching later and I finally get up, walking away from the bed. I felt like the same bag of potatoes that dropped from its bed yesterday, my legs trembling just to do a few steps. Not enough sleep, I thought, drinking a bit of water from a bottle in my belonging. My face distorted into disgust for the taste. Hard to find purified water anywhere, I can’t complain. I looked at the other bed through the bangs in front of my eyes and saw her there, lying, sleeping. A little smile formed on my lips while I used my magic to clear my view and took care of my mane, wearing my once-white hat and my brown, dirt coat.

As I took my first step outside the door, I tripped and fell face-first in the wooden floor. Pain woke me up better than any drink would, as I rolled on the floor, hooves over my aching muzzle. “What the h—“, my scream interrupted by the sight of the tripwire planted in front of the door. It was possible to hear some foal’s laugh echoing in the corridor, but I couldn’t find from where, exactly. Not amused, I disarmed the tripwire with a flick of magic and got up, feeling something dripping from my muzzle, a quick rub from a free hoof answered my question with the scarlet liquid on it.

I went down the stairs, directing myself to the bar. This time, the griffon were not alone, an orange mare running from frying pan to frying pan in the back of the counter, frying some kind of dough while the griffon himself were serving the costumers with pints of whiskey, mugs of milk or bottles of water. I raised my hoof for a moment, calling his attention. The big guy pressed his beak and approached me, muttering between steps something about those damned ponies.

I shrugged and cleaned my throat: “A mug of milk and… what’s that?” I pointed to a plate another earth pony, not very sympathetic, was eating. It looked like bread, but softer and with some kind of liquid dirt over it. In fact, the whole saloon was full of people eating the same thing. “It smells great.”

“Pancakes.” He answered, a bit of pride in his words as he took a more erect posture. “Our specialty. You ain’t gonna find this anywhere at Freeside, The Saddle or even Equestria!” The orange mare kept frying those pancakes like it was the end of the world (again), running side to side while flipping some of the dough with the frying pan, the little beige disks flipping in the air before being caught by the dexterous earth pony. “It’s a delicacy.

“And, by delicacy, I mean it’s expensive. Do you have the caps? Thirty per pancake.”

I almost put both hooves into the air. If you’re gonna rob me, at least say so! A pat on my back and a familiar voice stopped me: “Bring us ten and two mugs of milk.” I looked at the purple pony, again with her longcoat and face-covering hat.  “Good day, sleeping beauty,” I woke up first than you! “How are you?”

“Meh.” As I leaned on my hooves against the counter, the griffon put in front of each of us a mug full of milk and, as soon as possible, he turned to serve the other clients. Discreetly, I took a sip of milk and pointed at him. “He doesn’t like ponies?” I whispered.

“No, he doesn’t like unicorns, that’s different.” she chuckled. How does that make any kind of differ—Then I took a better look around and there weren’t any other unicorn besides me. Oh. “Many ponies here on Freeside doesn’t like your kind too, ‘too full of power’, they say. You know, magic.”

“Yeah…” It was hard to don’t notice that there weren’t nearly any unicorn over Freeside, the majority of unicorns in Haygas belonging to the Saddle. It’s like having a horn equals having a lot of money. If it were true I wouldn’t be here. I floated my mug for another sip and I observed the orange pony piling up five pancakes into a single dish, while preparing others. Probably it was our order. By boredom and instinct, I floated my radio to my ear and turned it on, static greeting me through its signal. Too far for DJ P0N-3, I knew. Stargaze noticed the simple electronic device and leaned in my direction. “Turn it to Radio Haygas,” she asked, “it’s important for our trip.”

“Yeah, sure…” I tilted the knob to the right, making the radio readjust itself while searching for another frequency. After some turns, we could make sense of the static and the radio finally memorized Radio Haygas. The voice that came from the little speaker was really harsh, coming from what looked an old stallion with a ton of life experience.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, you’re listening to Radio Haygas and this is your host, Mr. Haygas. It’s better to put on my newscaster hat, it’s time for the news: Do you remember that filly Stable Dweller, also known as Light Bringer? Well, it looks like she succeeded. Look up to the skies, fillies, here’s Celestia’s grace again, for all of us. And now, I’ll let you with a classi—“

I smiled when he talked about the Stable Dweller, as I was in one of the cloud-covered areas when everything turned into light. It felt like my eyes were burning, trying to adapt to the sudden brightness, but it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever saw. It was, what, a week ago? I couldn’t remember exactly when, but ever since my journey turned from bad to worse: In uncovered areas of the Wasteland, the heat proved too much of a challenge for a unprepared buck like me, making me drink at least twice the water I would normally. The second dish was served at that moment, breaking my line of thought with desire of eating those strange disk things that smelled so good. Pancakes, I have to remember.

“Ya two makes a cute couple.” What? Was she talking about us? My eyes goggled as I turned my head to Stargaze, as she was trying, and failing miserably, to hold laughter. I think that my reaction was a little worse than it could have been, so I just thanked the orange pony with a question mark and focused onto the pancakes. After a couple of laughs, she recomposed herself and started to eat one of the pancakes like she was a manticore. I gazed at my own plate and ripped one of the pancakes in half, floating the piece to my mouth and, uneasy, I put it in my mouth.

I think I scared her when I put a whole pancake in my mouth after the first taste. It was so good, I couldn’t react in any other way. A whole pancake was too hard to chew and it took many swallows for it to go down, so I should try to hold back. The radio kept floating, giving a background soundtrack to our breakfast, an old pre-war music by a mare that I think was called Sweetie Belle, DJ P0N-3 always played the same music at least twelve times a day, even though his playlist has broadened a lot with Velvet Remedy’s repertoire. Had I dreamt about playing over the radio too? Sure, but it was exactly that: A dream. Like she have read my mind, Stargaze wondered:

“Why don’t you send a holotape to some radio?” I already had thought about that, too, and the answer was simpler than I liked.

“How will I record something without any kind of equipment? And it’s hard enough to find a holotape, worse to find a recorder.” I took another sip, the milk helped to swallow some of the pancakes.

“There’s that, yeah… Mr. Buckle probably knows where to—“

“Who?” It took me some moments to make a simple math in my head and to relate both that Buckle guy and her contractor. Sure they are the same people. “Ah, okay.” I just cut her before she answered.

“If you help him, I think he would be glad to help you with the recording.” Seeing her smile like that without a glimpse of her eyes was really disturbing. I just nodded, without a proper answer. It took us a little more than ten minutes after that to finish our breakfast while I still felt like a million gazes were over my shoulder, the pressure of being unwanted in that place making its toll for me to be sincerely nervous. “Can we go, now?” I whispered to her, close to a whimper. Again, she took some caps and dropped them into the counter, finally getting to the door. As I took my own steps, I saw in the corner of my eye the suspecting movement of those evil-looking ponies from yesterday.

Again?

“Hey, horned little bitch!” Again. “We don’t like your kind here at Freeside, so get fucking lost!”

I put my own sunglasses, a necessary good after a lot of the cloud-clearing, the sun cracking over our heads, and looked at them through the lenses. There were four of them, all heavy-looking and bigger than Stargaze and I. With a sigh, I responded: “I am already going away. What’s wrong with you ponies, uh? Are you, what, thinking-impaired?” It took me a moment to understand what I’ve said. Why, mouth, why.

It wasn’t needed a genius to understand how angry they were, and I made it worse with my foul-talking. I think I inherited that from Ma’, she talked before thinking about it too, but at least her life wasn’t at the line every time she did that. Stargaze smiled, and that gave me a little bit of confidence that, maybe, I would not die today. Then they pulled out shotguns. Damn I will die today.

“What did you said, little bitch?!” He said before pulling his own weapon, a sledgehammer. “Repeat it!” I gazed at the purple-furred pony and she just nodded at me, encouraging me to do as he said. I swallowed and took a deep breath. “I said: Are. You. What…  Thinking. Impaired?” I am so going to die today.

He answered me like the mature and gentle pony he is: With a punch. I was knocked down, the perfect position for him to just punch my head in with the sledgehammer in his mouth. The sharp, loud noise over my head made me cringe, and I dodged as fast as I could the falling sledgehammer, cracking the ground under its impact. He took a step back, blood dripping from his gums, and the smoking revolver on Stargaze’s mouth was cocked once more.

“You… bitch!” He punctuated his offense spitting blood on the ground, not aware of my proximity of his own sledgehammer, hit by the longcoated pony with a shot in its head, the impact itself enough to loosen the grip of the little big monster in front of me. That was a one-of-a-kind opportunity that I couldn’t lose, as I grip the sledgehammer with my magic and, shutting my eyes, threw it against his right hindleg.

By his scream, I think it hurt. I threw myself up again, taking distance from those shotgun-wielding ponies while Stargaze aimed at them with already proven pinpoint accuracy. “We don’t need to end this in a bloodbath,” I tried to negotiate, letting go a breath I didn’t knew I was holding, “and it’s your choice.” I floated the sledgehammer closer to me, marking my words.

“You fucking assholes, the Fiends will know about you!” Wait, who? As they went away, their leader limping, I dropped the sledgehammer and my legs gave in, making me sit after such dangerous situation. I tried to control my breathing with some deep breaths, failing at that too, while Stargaze holstered her weapon. I think my doubt was so obvious that she approached me and cleaned her throat.

“The Fiends are a bunch of junkie ponies that calls themselves a gang. Not as bad as raiders, but just as dangerous.” She offered me a sip of water from one of her bottles, that I kindly accepted. Quite refreshing, besides the taste.

“It’s better if we go a little faster, then, isn’t it?” I finally had enough strength to pull myself together and got up. Many looks came from some of the destroyed buildings around us, and many more from the pub we were, making me uneasy. I don’t like this place at all, caps or not.

The only advantage is that we were already on the right side of the Saddle, so we wouldn’t need to cross that place again. That was a curious road, with so many intact buildings and a lot of neon signs, with casinos everywhere and drunken ponies roaming the streets like their lives were being sucked by all that light… I promised myself that, one day, I would be kicked out of one of those big casinos for winning too much. What a dream, right?

We kept going until we reached a blue bus broken between two big destroyed buildings, the so-called Freeside gate. With a thud, the double door was opened and she walked through, as I gave the last glimpse on that wretched hell that I would not return to so soon. The dust floating inside the bus gleamed in sunlight, quite a sight for such surroundings. I passed through quite quickly, watching as Stargaze spoke with some kind of caravan. Two armed griffin with some kind of magical weapon kept close attention to me and, after she signaled for me to approach, they kind of relaxed.

“This is going to be part of our way home, Note. This kind pony will guide us to Friendship City and, from there, we’ll travel on foot.” I couldn’t see who she was talking about, so I just nodded and entered the cart. “I’m Sharp Note, pleased to meet you…”

“Soarin’, named after an old Wonderbolt.” He said, and it took me just a moment to understand that he was a pegasus: We would be flying to Friendships City. I… don’t like pegasi. I know, I know they weren’t that bad, but they really screwed everypony in the wastes just because they were stuck-up hypocrites. The Enclave attack was just the tip of the iceberg, but at least it ceased. He noticed how uncomfortable I was, then added: “I know it’s partially our fault, but don’t blame every pegasus because of that.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, nodding. I knew that, but it’s still a pretty hard thing to forgive in such little time. Again with a precognitive ability I couldn’t comprehend, Stargaze entered the cart and sat by my side, taking her hat off and leaning her head into my shoulder. “Can we go now, love?”

I stumbled over words before just nodding, my face redder than the cracked ground around Haygas, and Soarin’ took flight with both griffin by the sides of the cart, protecting us and the various crates behind, probably of some kind of alcoholic drink. I understood that we should act like a couple so we wouldn’t be suspect, and while she had her hat it was easy, as I didn’t saw her face. She was, well, beautiful, and I need to praise that, but… Damn, this is going to be a loooong trip.

________________________________________

Footnote:

Perk Added: Friend of the Night (Your eyes adapt quickly to low-light conditions.)

Lvl. 2

S  P  E  C  I  A  L

3  6  4  7  6  5  9

A/N: If you read it, rate it, comment it. I would love critics and, if something's strange or plain simple wrong, tell me, I'll make sure to correct and to not repeat the same mistake. Thanks for reading. Oh, and Merry Christmas, forgot about that, yeah.