Fallout Equestria - The Foalfree Press: An Oral History of the Whinneyapolis Wasteland

by Wubway

Rating: mature
Tags: Sex, Slice of Life, Crossover, Drama, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 6526

Join an intrepid reporter as she documents the story of Whinneyapolis and the ponies who call it home, in their own words.

"The Foalfree Press seeks to explore a new corner of the Equestrian wasteland, not through the eyes of a hero and their friends, but through the testimony of everyday ponies just trying to stay alive.
The north is a frozen waste where ponies have been forced to stay underground to survive. Only in recent times have the ponies of Whinneyapolis-St. Pone ventured above ground, and one reporter has made it her mission to document their stories of struggle, perseverance, joy, and tragedy, in a grim and frigid world where darkness always looms on the horizon."

This is more or less a writing exercise in developing a setting, characters, etc. than an attempt at a serious narrative. Each chapter is intended to be a short story made up of other short stories. Hopefully it is an entertaining diversion, and an interesting piece of FE writing, but this isn't meant to be a competitor among serious FE stories. I'm just here for fun and practice, and maybe/hopefully I'll make something enjoyable in the process.

Published 2022-12-17 02:30:00 UTC
Last updated 2022-12-17 02:30:00 UTC

Prologue - Whinneyapolis-St. Pone

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, ponies wondered if they would ever see the sun or the stars. They got their wish when the Lightbringer ended the dominion of the Enclave and cleared the skies by taking control of the Single Pegasus Project. The surface awaited death from above. Instead, ponies were united again. A new age of harmony seemed to be upon us, but ponies soon reawoke from that Equestrian dream. Years of scarcity and brutality are not easily forgotten, and peace remained a distant memory. While most of Equestria has seen clear skies, we stand on the brink of total darkness. And I am afraid; for myself, for my friends, for my home, because if my time in the wasteland has taught me one thing, it’s that war… war never changes.

Whinneyapolis-St. Pone

The Sister Cities of Whinneyapolis and St. Pone, built on either side of the Whinneysota River, were two of the northernmost cities in Equestria, and during the war were primarily devoted to food production. The cities were never directly struck by any balefire bombs, but nevertheless, the apocalypse didn’t cut the ponies of Whinneyapolis-St. Pone any slack, then or now. What the cities were spared in bombings was made up for by the balefire winters that followed.

While the pegasi did block out the sun, their maintenance of the cloud cover did prevent harsh balefire winters enveloping all of Equestria. The Sister Cities are beyond the northernmost extent of the Grand Pegasus Enclave, and the cloud cover was feral from the apocalypse onward. Because the atmosphere over northern Equestria was unmaintained by pegasi, the fallout launched by the balefire bombs was allowed to linger and form into a thick haze, blotting out the sun to a greater degree than the Enclave’s clouds ever did. Being in the north, pre-war Whinneyapolis-St. Pone was already cold, and that haze created a cooling effect that caused longer, harsher winters. Plus, the snow was now radioactive. To survive, those who couldn’t get into a stable found homes in the cities’ subway tunnels, where roughly half of the cities’ settlements remain today. They now refer to the Sister Cities as simply Whinneyapolis, or the cities.

While DJ Pon-3 often preaches about the heroic sacrifice of the Lightbringer, the heroine who brought back the sun, the ponies of the north have been surveying the skies for changes and have yet to notice any. The skies are still gray, the nights are still long, and it is always below freezing.

Despite the occasional rad-blizzard blowing south, the radioactivity of the surface has decreased to about the same ambient levels as the rest of Equestria within the last few generations, and the ponies of the tunnels have emerged to reclaim the ruins of Whinneyapolis-St. Pone. Located in the vast Mall of Equestria, the first major settlement established above ground was founded within living memory.

The mall’s sheer size and abundance made it the perfect place to settle as ponies emerged from their underground homes, and in a few years, the mall became a prosperous and bustling city. Early on, one of the massive department stores was made into a market for traders, and as the city grew, the smaller shops were converted into businesses catering to the city's permanent inhabitants. Everything from the necessities of survival, like a simple weaponsmith to an honest-to-goodness mane-stylist began popping up. While we have our own station, lots of ponies still listen to DJ Pon-3, and I’m proud to say I’m his local correspondent. I’m Red, of the Maloria Foalfree Press.

Author's Note

This is a lazy side project I started basically as a writing exercise while I write my novel, which is coming along at a snail's pace because I keep making other side projects. I've always enjoyed FE and thought writing my own story in this world would be a fun way to practice and get feedback.

Issue 1

Mayor Sandy

[The mare seated across from me shows all the telltale signs of a long life in the wasteland. She lost an ear to frostbite and an eye to raiders. Her mane and tail have gone gray, and her scars have blended in with her wrinkles, yet she’s still solid as a brick wall and as sharp as a tack. While she has recently been facing arthritis, she considers it a point of pride to have lived long enough for it to become an issue for her “to overcome like all the rest.” We’re situated in her office in Maloria city hall. The space is neat, yet shows all the signs of long inhabitance, and it’s in this room that many of the city’s great feats had their beginnings. One such accomplishment can be seen from the window, as her office overlooks the city’s central plaza. The seven-acre space that now serves as a public park and recreation area formerly housed the MoM’s Camp Celestia amusement park. Many of the smaller rides have been restored, but the larger rides have been torn down and repurposed. The tracks that the rollercoasters once ran now serve as a simple trolley system that spans the city. For the safety, civilization, and luxuries she has brought to them, the ponies of Maloria love and revere Mayor Sandy.]

I remember the first time I stepped outside the tunnels. We came out of the station by the Sisters Stadium. It had been our plan to set up shop at there, but on our way, we encountered a party of settlers headed toward the mall. Half our number wanted to go there themselves, and the other half had figured that everyone else would be going there and there would be fighting. You see, many of the stations had advertisements for the mall, so it had grown to near mythic proportions as a scavenger’s paradise. Everyone knew that it would still be untouched and ripe for the pickings. Those settlers claimed that the rumors were true and that it really was safe and full of salvage. While it sounded too good to be true, it still won most of our number over, so we joined them. And, it was too good to be true, of course, because while the mall was indeed chock-full of salvage, others had made it their home as well.

But, as you know, the mall is absolutely vast, and various groups had claimed territories within. We had the good fortune of being welcomed by the ponies who’d taken over the hotel. [That is, the “Écurie at the Mall of Equestria,” or Curie Tower as it is now known.] I know you probably know all this, but I’ll explain for your paper’s sake: the hotel was built as a separate structure and is connected by short skyways. All we had to do was seal off the first floor and then block off the skyways, and then the whole building was ours, all six stories above the ground level. The ground floor was just a welcome center for fresh arrivals to the mall and hotel, so sealing it off wasn’t much of a loss at the time. [The tower’s Ground Floor now serves as the main guard post protecting the Maloria’s main entrance and the Traders’ Market.]

On the second floor, they had a café for the guests, so we had a kitchen and community hall, and on the floors above that there were rooms that became our homes. I was still a blank flank at the time, and before then I had lived in a one-room scrap-metal shack with six other ponies in Sisters Stadium Station. Now, we had furniture! I had never slept on actual bedding before, let alone on a mattress. And it was the same for all the ponies at the tower, so we were determined to hold that building if it meant fending off an army the size of the Remnant.

As I said, the mall is vast, and so there were other strongholds formed across it, the other largest being what is now Shears Village. Luckily, they were friendly to us. But others in the mall were less so. Some were raiders holed up in stores, perfectly willing to fight amongst each other as much as with us. The Jungle Café was occupied by ponies from one of the most antagonistic stations in the tunnels, the Argos, and they quickly, albeit loosely, united most of the gangs against us settlers.

We allied ourselves with Shears, and we moved as a hammer and anvil to conquer the mall. The problem was the various stairwells and escalators, and open spaces where we could be fired upon from balconies. It took, if my memory serves me right, a month and a half to clear the mall of hostiles.

What exactly was your battle strategy?

Our first goal was to control and fortify the ground floor. We wanted to prevent strangers and critters from coming into the mall. Of course, that was utterly impossible. All the main doors, and the walls around them, were glass. Then, there were big store windows for miles and miles all around. So, our “fortifications” were like trying to kiss an amputation all better. Nevertheless, holding the ground floor did give us the upper hoof.

Still, there were more leaks in that line than could be counted. It was just as much a war of attrition as a war of conquest. We had to hold our homes on all four floors, but Jungle Café was on just the second. The restaurant was really just a headquarters for Argos, and the gangs all had their own stores as camps.

At a preselected time, groups would set out from the Hotel and Shears to sweep and clear the halls and stores, meeting halfway, killing any hostile gangers or creatures they came across, or inviting any non-hostiles to settle with us, which was relatively common, especially during night-sweeps. I can only imagine the fear those poor scavengers felt seeing our sweeping squads, and the relief once they realized we weren’t hunting them.

The sweep squads moved slowly and quietly, checking stores. If hostiles were inside, they would throw a grenade, then start shooting. It was reasonably efficient, but there were lots of places to hide, and it was easy to avoid our sweepers. Plus, nobody wanted to go too far in and get ambushed. Our primary aim was to pick them off until we wiped them out or broke their morale enough to make them surrender or flee. We did accept some into our own ranks, but unfortunately, some, after losing a fight that killed one of ours, were executed. I don't for a second hold it against our fighters, but at the same time, it only served to dissuade others from giving up, meaning they just fought that much fiercer.

We whittled away at their numbers until we could push them farther up. We would block the stairwells so they could only use the escalators in the open areas, and we would use snipers to pick them off. Some of the scavengers who came in one day had found two hunting rifles. We made silencers for them, and then built ghillie suits from garbage. They would hide in corners or piles of waste and watch at night, picking off those they could. I don’t know how they did that job.

Because of the ferals?

Exactly. Rival gangs made making permanent fortifications and progress impossible because they wanted control for themselves. Ferals, on the other hoof, well. Everypony knows how they are. Most had been cleared out by us or the gangers, but some who had sequestered themselves away would come out at night to hunt. One sniper came back quaking because a feral crawled out of a trashcan he had positioned himself by and nearly stepped on him, then started sniffing like a hound before moving off after hearing something. It found somepony, probably a scavenger, in a store and took them by surprise, and the sniper had to listen. Thankfully, as the ghoul returned, he put it down.

From that day on, our snipers would thoroughly mask their scent before positioning themselves. For a while, they would make sure their spots for the night were feral-free during the day sweeps. But watchers from the gangs would start looking out for ponies investigating an area extra thoroughly, as they realized those were snipers, and then they would pick them off when they came to set up for the night.

Once we had effectively taken the first floor, we started on the second, pushing towards the Café. We thought we had blocked off all their ways to the third floor, but we hadn’t. Once they realized we had all but taken the second floor, small groups started slipping upstairs by night through one of the stairwells we had blocked. They silently dismantled the barricade and rebuilt it around a cabinet they had knocked the back out of. Nobody checking the barricade thought to open the doors on it, so they never realized that the gangers had made a passage until we started removing the barricades. The final shootout and siege of the restaurant was just us fighting improvised turrets made with ponnequins. Because we didn’t know they were turrets, we were shooting the ponnequins instead of the guns and mountings, just wasting ammo and mounting casualties.

It positively infuriated us, and fighting intensified. Instead of slow, methodic sweeps and the occasional ganger ambush, we launched a full offensive up the third and fourth levels that lasted a full week. Casualties were heavy, but by then, we outnumbered them five to one, and while they had the better weapons, we had been taking theirs and building up our armory with each sweep. Our final battle with them was in a diner on the fourth floor, and the final blow was a well-placed shot from a grenade launcher, fired by a colt barely older than I named Hayduke. He got his cutie mark that day, a shield and sword. He eventually became my husband, and that diner became the Maloria Security Museum and Memorial.

Once you had secured the mall, what was your next move?

Now that the Curie and Shears ponies were firm friends, we invited them to come stay with us. It was the collective decision of both the hotel and Shears ponies to direct all our resources to fortifying the ground floor. It took ages.

What was decided was to take slabs of concrete from the parking garages and use them to block the store windows. It took teams of bucks with sledgehammers and chisels to knock them out of parking garage floors, and then bring them down to the mall on trailers. It was extremely dangerous work. Many were crushed by trailers, or by collapses after a level’s integrity was compromised. That, on top of attacks by raiders, ghouls, and so on. But we were determined to see it through.

By the end of our labors, the first floor became virtually impregnable. We’ve been assaulted more times than I can remember over the years, and not once has one of those slabs been broken through. Ponies have tried, but with the racket that gets made by hammering or blasting through them, our security forces are there before they make any significant progress. And, mind you, we’ve reinforced them over the years, so our security has steadily increased.

As the slabs progressed, we made a line of defenses inside that advanced with them. There were multiple times that we were attacked from inside the mall by raiders who'd come in farther down the mall. Most of you young ponies have grown up knowing complete security inside Maloria, but in the early stages, our hold here was tenuous at best. The size of the mall is a double-edged sword that way. The same thing that makes it such a great place to have settled is what made settling it so damn hard. Tenpony Tower has the advantage of being a tower. Once a floor is secure, everything above it is too. Instead of, what, a city block at the base? we had miles to cover.

Our first major expansion was into the closest department store. It was a smart move to take that first because word had spread of the “Mall Settlement” and ponies were streaming in, and with them came trade. First with scavengers, and eventually traders from some of the nearby stations. The subway stations and other tunnel settlements were spartan. We had necessities they lacked, such as generators, food, and medicine, but also luxuries like furniture and materials that they wanted badly. At first, we were inclined to be generous, knowing what it was like to live in such conditions. Unfortunately, we had to be callous. They had plenty of options to scavenge for themselves and didn’t need to rely on us. And if we were to survive, we couldn’t be trading away all the materials we had to rebuild the mall.

After our market was up and running, a meeting was held among the de facto leaders of our group to form a city council to direct further expansion efforts and to establish a rule of law. At that point, there were just as many new settlers as there were ponies from the Shears and Curie groups, and they lacked that firm sense of community we had. Because of that, killings over petty disputes were frighteningly common.

We also needed a name. I suggested combining the few remaining letters on the sign above the mall’s actual main entrance and calling the city Maloria. I got my cutie mark for that [a lectern bearing a candle]. After the establishment of the city council and security forces, progress was relatively smooth. I would later be elected as Maloria’s first mayor, and Hayduke was our first sheriff. We got married after having worked with each other for a while. Ever since we have been unanimously re-elected, and I’ve directed the majority of the city’s major expansions and projects, and Hayduke oversaw them and kept things under control.

[The elderly mayor looked out over the park with pride before respectfully asking to conclude the interview.]

[Ever since her husband’s passing the year prior, Mayor Sandy has had less energy, most of which she spends on the city. Her last major project was the expedition to the Hayo Clinic that procured an auto-doc for Maloria Hospital. Her current project is writing a speech for this year’s election, during which she plans to announce her retirement and endorsement of her protégé Lilac Breeze.]

Captain Hail

[Outside the city’s main walls, protecting its entrances is a secondary layer of defense. Beyond is an empty field of concrete covered by a thick layer of gray snow. It is surveyed by spotlights and turrets, overseen by Maloria’s Security officers, who huddle around braziers with their weapons held close. I walk with the Captain of the City Guard, a big bruiser of a buck. He towers over me, clad in a telogreika, and the standard guard ushanka.]

As you’ve noticed, being out here isn’t pleasant, but it is necessary. As strong as the walls are, they would be no more than minor irritations without the stallions and mares who defend them. The guards are what make them impregnable. The fury horde that attacked four years ago… that was a hell of a fight. Eight hours of them just coming and coming. The defenses are what kept us alive, but had it not been for us, they would have been overrun in minutes. I’m sure the gates would have held for a while, but not indefinitely.

I remember being stationed on the walls by the main entrance that night. The sun had just gone down and was pitch dark, but it was a clear night. One by one, the searchlights stopped sweeping and stayed fixed outwards. Me and the buck I was standing with thought it was a malfunction, so one of the guys went down to go get an engineer. We thought nothing of it. Then – I still vividly remember his voice – one of the bucks a little down the line called, ‘Hey, you see that? Something’s reflecting the lights.’

We all peered a little more closely out into the darkness, and just out of the light’s range were blue eyes shining back at us. Hundreds of them, all in a line. We didn’t recognize them at first, so I asked one of the mares below to fetch binoculars. She levitated them up to me, and I looked through them, and that’s when I saw them. All these furies just standing there, unmoving. Immediately I screamed for the alarm.

Once the sirens sounded and the portcullises were lowered, they shrieked and charged all at once. Once they had entered into the spotlight beams, all the turrets opened up at the same time. I’d never seen that happen before and haven’t since, not all at once like that. The machine guns sawed into the first rank of them like a scythe, and they tripped the ones behind them, so for a moment, they were bunched up, and the missile turrets on the second-story balconies fired into that bunch. When the missiles hit, it was complete carnage. They didn’t avoid the minefields either. It was like watching freakish popcorn as they ran through them.

I think it was the razor wire that saved us there at the start. It made them easy to pick off for us and the turrets. The shotgun turrets at the gates, too, just perfect. But heck, if it wasn’t terrifying, both sides of it. Being all but swarmed by the fucking undead, pardon my language and the efficiency of our defenses. Of course, had they been firing back at us, it would have been much different for us guards, but any attackers still would have been cut to pieces, either by the mines or the turrets, had they been pushed into the killing zones.

It’s a frightening thing what happened to those bodies. When we cleared them away, they were mangled but stiff as boards by the time we got to them. Their blood had formed sheets of ice. The whole field had been stained red and black. If those were ponies, well, Celestia, have mercy.

Ponies have attacked before, so what happens then?

Yes. Usually, we get left alone. Most see the walls and turrets and think ‘nope.’ Sometimes there are snipers who try and pick us off, hence why we wear these when we are stationed on the wall. [The guard’s ushanka has removable metal plating protecting the forehead, on which is written Maloria Security. He taps his twice with a hoof.] But there have been some attacks, but usually they rely more on stealth and deception than force of numbers.

Any examples?

There was a gang, about thirty-some ponies. They positioned snipers and small arms set to shoot on a timer to attack us from one side. While all the guards took up positions to shoot back, the main bulk of their forces came at us from behind. With all the gunfire, nobody noticed that they had picked off they two guards on that side of the wall and shot up the turrets so they could approach the wall with ladders. Half, or even most of them got over before anyone noticed, and they opened up on the guards like a veritable firing squad. But more guards arrived from inside, and they fought them mostly hoof to hoof. We came out on top, but it was certainly a close call. Those guards are memorialized up in the security museum. They’re heroes, and as far as I’m concerned, every mare and stallion who protects this city is too.

Brego

[I sit in the back corner of a bar, next to me sits Brego, a gun for hire, and most importantly, an ex-security officer.]

Ha! What a crock’a shit. Heroes my ass. You don’t believe it do you?

Not all of it.

Good, cause you shouldn’t. Don’t gimme wrong cause some of the folks in the guard are fantastic ponies. And defending the city is without a doubt a noble cause. But that whole ‘we serve the common good’ shit is just that, shit. Some guards are right self-serving cunts, power-hungry cunts, and straight up assholes. And they serve the city, not the ponies living in it.

Isn’t that the same difference.

Oh hell nah. [He laughs in my face.] You know what they say about power. Those in power serve themselves. Sure, ponies are happy to praise Mayor Sandy, and I must admit she did a bang-up job making this place nice and cozy, but look at the difference between Curie Tower and Shears. They got the good shit. And the guards, yeah. Guess how you get power? You suck up to those with it and rise up the ranks. Trust me baby, I’d know. And once you get it, ohh that’s when the fun begins, if you’re a cunt. And most ponies with power are.

Chef Crisper

[On the second floor is the Jungle Café, built to look like you’re eating inside, you guessed it, a jungle. The walls are made to look like stone and are covered in dense fake foliage, and the ceiling is painted to look like a night sky with twinkling lights imitating stars and the moon. Dominating the room is an artificial tree, the branches of which spread out across the ceiling with fake leaves. For many ponies, it is the closest thing to a living tree with leaves they have ever seen. Walking past a depiction of Daring Doo courageously fleeing from pre-war jungle cats, I enter the kitchen, domain of Chef Crisper. He is among some of Maloria’s most well-respected chefs, and is probably the most well-known. The other great cooks are at expensive restaurants, but because of it’s appeal as the Argo’s former headquarters bringing lots of ponies in, Crisper determined that keeping it cheap and accessible would bring in the most money. Therefore, he gets paid, and ponies get good food and an interesting place to eat.]

Honestly, I feel like a real cunt sometimes, surrounded by all this food. I mean, every so often I go down to talk to the traders to see if they have anything good, and these fuckers are all skinny an’ emaciated. Then, remember that one settlement the DJ talked about, Arbu, where they ate ponies. Those bastards sold pony meat calling it radigator. And if they actually had radigators to hunt, why eat other fuckin’ ponies? That’s the state of the fuckin’ world. And here I am, a goddess damn chef, cooking all kinds of shit. And keep our diets in mind. Right now, we eat all kinds of shit, but we still eat far more meat than the average wastelander.

Can you explain why?

Yeah, the fuckin’ tunnels. You can’t grow food down there, maybe mushrooms and potatoes, but meat was one of the only reliable sources of food. Pigs. You can feed pigs to pigs, you can feed the dead to pigs, you can feed rotten, inedible food to pigs. Reliable source of food. So, you had generation after generation growing up on meat, and it just became our standard diet. Now we have more fruits and vegetables and shit, but we’re so used to meat it’s just a normal food. Now, keep in mind, cannibalism wasn’t uncommon in the tunnels either. There was supposedly one dead-end tunnel fuckin’ notorious for it.

Which tunnel was that?

Oh, I can’t remember the name. It wasn’t a subway tunnel, it just a maintenance one or some shit. But some real destitute fucks congregated there, basically went savage, started eating each other. They locked up a group of ponies, kept them for food. They’d cut their limbs off piece by piece and cauterize the end each time. Eventually they’d kill the bucks, but they’d keep the mares alive to impregnate and have foals, basically farming them. [He shudders.] Some super fucked up shit, all just to get a meal.

How did this get found out?

Some group stumbled on the fuckers, got attacked, and killed them all. Then they found the cage or pen or whatever they kept their captives in. Most were barely alive, diseased, and couldn’t be saved, so they had to be killed as well. Like I said, fucked up shit. Now, I’m all for eating meat, but I’d sooner kill myself than eat another fuckin’ pony. [He shakes his head in disgust.]

Yeah… going back to the original subject, how do we get our food?

Scavenging, obviously, for a lot of things. But we got pigs and chickens for meat. Sandy outlawed eating brahmin since they can talk but occasionally the traders bring brahmin meat and since they’re already dead it doesn’t matter. So, we buy food from traders too, but we also have animals here we slaughter and that’s where most of the city’s meat comes from. And the vegetables and shit, now that shit just messes with my brain. There’s some kinda greenhouse thing. It used to be some kinda exhibit about new farming methods used to fuel the war effort, but now it’s the main source of the city’s produce. And they replicated the thingies to increase production, so now there’s even more of the fuckin’ things across the city. I ain’t complaining or anything, but it just confuses the shit outta me. Like, I thought you needed dirt to grow plants but apparently not. Real fuckin’ weird eh?

“Governor” Nails

[Maloria is well known for its prosperity and comparative luxury, likened to Tenpony Tower. But, unlike Tenpony, Maloria is a full-fledged city, and that means different social classes. There are the well-off who live in Curie or Marreott (the Marreott Hotel, now an upper-middle-class neighborhood), and the average ponies who run businesses in the city, such as myself. But the around a third of Maloria’s of ponies live in conditions similar to those anywhere else in the wasteland.

Shears Village, formerly the Shears Department Store which sold clothes and home décor, now houses a shanty town. Other than being inside the safe walls of Maloria, Shears is hardly different than any other settlement in the wasteland. The poor build their own homes out of scrap, and live with only the barest amenities.]

You know the original Foal Free Press was three words, not two, right Red?

Yeah, but they didn’t have another capital F for me to use in the sign, so I took a lowercase one and just made it one word on the paper too.

[He nods his understanding.] Yeah, that’s how it goes.

[The buck before me has sunken, bloodshot eyes and a nasty cough but is well known among the Shears community as a protector. And while he has no real authority, the ponies of Shears defer to him, giving him the ironic title of Governor. During times of tension between the Shears ponies and the rest of Maloria, Sandy deals with him as a representative of Shears Village, informally recognizing his position.]

To this day, we have more theft and more violence than anywhere else. So, the guards always loom over us. Not because they want to enforce the law and protect us but because they can bully us with that as the excuse. We’re their chew toys. There have been plenty of petitions that go unanswered, protests that got beat down. Ponies hated the guards, still do, but most were too afraid to do anything. The last real protest ended in a massacre. Twelve dead. Things are better now that I’ve cemented an authority both with Shears and Sandy.

And how did you do that?

Well… One night I heard muffled crying in an alley and found a guard raping a foal. And that was that. I killed him. [He nonchalantly mimes hitting somepony in the head with a hammer.] Beat in the back of his head, tore off his cock, and carved “rapist” into his belly.

Please believe me when I say I dislike violence. Killing has always been a means to survive. I never took any pleasure in what I did, and when I mutilated them it was to send a message. I viewed it with the same dispassion as putting down a raider.

From that night on, I made it my nightly routine to patrol the streets and alleys for predatory guards. Every time I caught one, I killed them the same way and branded them with their crime. I got to twenty-six before there was any noticeable decrease in their abuse. Once the village knew I was behind the killings, they gave me my title. Soon after, the guards came for me and an angry mob chased them out. While they wouldn’t stand up for themselves, they would stand up for the one who did. It was an unspoken agreement that if I was arrested, Shears would riot, so Sheriff Hayduke dropped my charges, especially in light of why I killed the guards. It was common knowledge even outside Shears why the guards were killed.

But abusive guards aren’t your only troubles?

I wish. Back then, we had no clean water source. The water purifier was a paid service. Dew Drop, the mare who owned and operated it, knew we were desperate so she would extort us for caps and favors. Occasionally sexual, because of course, but also to commit crimes for her. Despite the amount of crime inside Shears, few of us were willing to risk doing anything outside because the consequences would be so severe, least of all for someone else’s benefit. There was a lot of talk of storming the purifier, and… well, other unpleasant things involving Dew Drop. But I levied some of my influence to hold back the mob while I went to speak to Sandy about it. My conditions were simple. Take the purifier from Dew Drop, or she would be killed. And before you ask, yes, I spoke to Dew Drop beforehoof. She didn’t take my threat seriously, being too comfortable in her position to think rationally I suppose. I wouldn’t kill in cold blood unless I had to, so I went to Sandy.

Sandy understood it wasn’t a bluff and confiscated the purifier. Then, she ordered Dewdrop to spend a night in the stocks as punishment. [He sighs, looking down.] I firmly believe Sandy is a basically good mare, and this was not her, or even Hayduke’s doing. He didn’t have her heart but he wasn’t malicious or cruel. But, to get back at me personally, I bet, for what I do to their comrades and for overstepping my station, the guards who took Dew Drop put her stocks in the second-story Shears Village center. That morning, we found her dead, her throat cut. A group had beaten and raped her that night, just like the guards knew would happen. [He spat.]

I love my community, and my people. But they haven’t lived the same soft, safe lives as the rest of Maloria and are hard because of it. We are mostly scavengers. We don’t get to go to the clinic for healing potions if we get hurt out there. No RadAway either. We have the street doc and alcohol to numb the pain. Addiction is rampant as ponies try and self-medicate.

As tight-knit a community as we are, it’s usually in the form of an “us against them” mentality, y’know. Shears against Maloria, First Floor against Second Floor, and that nonsense. Individuals within Shears are on their own.

They’ll rob each other, kill each other, until they have a common enemy to rally against, but then it’s back to normal afterwards. That’s just the way it is when your filly has diarrhea and no clean water, or your colt is foaming at the mouth from rad-sickness after going out scavenging. You gotta look out for number one first, and if that means beating the buck a few shacks over for his medicine then so be it.

Anyone who says they’d do otherwise in that situation is a liar, pure and simple. And that’s what privilege does to you, makes you a judgmental liar. That’s why so many of the ponies who have grown up in Maloria without having to set foot outside, or live like we do, look down at us, and think what the guards do is justified. That’s why, despite being rich and privileged, I respect Sandy and Hayduke. Because they had been where we are, and built Maloria from nothing. They understood me and my position, and respected me in return.

But Lilac Breeze. She grew up here, she never had to struggle, she doesn’t know what it means to have nothing and doesn’t know what it’s like to be us. I don’t doubt that Sandy has tried to teach her, but words can only do so much. Some lessons have to be taught by experience to truly be learned. Privilege also breeds ignorance, so unless she gets taught by experience, she’ll never question that she’s right. That’s why I fear the day she’s elected, and I have no doubt it will be her and not Frostmarch, and we have to deal with her. And what happens when I’m gone too? Shears won’t have someone who can control and represent it, or a mayor who’ll take the village’s issues seriously. Shears will be a powder keg, and ponies will get hurt. It’s frightening.

Author's Note

So, if it isn't plain to see already, this was heavily inspired by World War Z by Max Brooks. I thought that oral history format would be an interesting way to explore the wasteland.

I have Chapter 1 published despite being shorter than I'd like. It can stand on its own, but I may update it with a second character or more from Sandy. I know having a chapter get updated is annoying, and people won't want to reread just to see the changes, but I wanted something more substantial than the prologue out there for people to have right away. Going forward, I'll try to have the chapters fully finished when they are published, and any changes will be tweaks, corrections, etc. Not major story additions unless they're really substantial or make the story a lot better.

I don't know how ambitious I'd like this story to get. I have ideas, I just don't know if I'm willing to invest the time to explore them. I suppose it depends on reception. But, going forward I'd like to do more than just interviews and explore the character of Red more in a sort of traditional FE 1st person style. I'll play around, but until then thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.

P.S. I stole snow furies from Rising Dawn (Interloper) because they're cool.