Fallout Equestria: Silverside

Chapter Thirteen: I can’t do this any more

“Perhaps it was fate that put all these brilliant minds in one room-well, the realist-and admittedly boring pony in me says it was Princess Celestia herself, but... All I know is that I am very proud to announce the official beginning of this project, a sentiment shared by the head of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. Although she could not be here tonight, she wishes all of you the best of luck. A toast now, to these two lovely ponies, their passion project, and to the betterment of all ponykind!”
“Now, play us something sweet, fellas!”
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Sterling hadn’t said a word since Nightlight had let her go, and the unicorn had respectfully not tried to converse with her. Although Sterling was clearly not in any kind of mood to talk, the same could not be said for Gordo.
“Well, I can tell you need somepony to lighten the mood.”
Sterling shot him a glare, but didn’t say anything.
“Seems like you found some info in there, you yelled the name… ‘Silver Thread’, is that right?”
He was annoying her, trying to goad her into a response. Why was he like this? Why did he insist on being so sarcastic all the time? And why wasn’t Nightlight telling him off right now?

She turned to the Unicorn, and raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to let this slide?”
Nighlight returned the look, curious. “Let what slide?”
“Him, Gordo, what he’s saying. He’s obviously trying to piss me off.”
The mare’s look returned to its natural, concerned state, and the pegasus rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

They walked for a few more hours, with barely a passing comment between them. Nightlight was humming a tune now, and it touched a part of her mind she couldn’t quite grasp.
“Wait, what song is that again?” Asked the pegasus, stopping outside an old convenience store.
“Hm? Oh, it’s called ‘The mare with a star in her eye.’ why, have you heard it?”
Sterling paused. “Yeah I…I don’t remember where from, but I think I have.”
“Oh, I know that one!” Gordo squawked, and promptly deepened his voice.
“Just yesterday I saw that mare. When our eyes met, I lost all of my cares”
Sterling rolled her eyes and smiled. “I don’t remember it being so corny!”
“Except for her, that unicorn girl, she’s just the one for me…”
This time, Nightlight started up, and although she mumbled a few of the words, Sterling was surprised to find that she was singing-along.

“Perhaps it’s the way she walks her walk, or maybe the way she talks her talk.”
“All that I know is that unicorn girl, she’s just the one for me”
“In the springtime i’ll ask her to marry me, a cute flash of teal in her mane.
“If she chooses ‘yes’ then I know that my life will never be the same.
“I’m not much of a handsome stallion, and I know that she is smarter than I”
“But that won’t stop me from wanting her love, that mare with a star in her eye!”

As they reached the end of the song, the three of them exchanged gleeful glances. Sterling didn’t know where she’d heard that song before, but music had always given her a warm feeling inside. A ‘click!’ was enough to immediately evaporate that feeling.

The three of them swung around, to be met with a wall of rifles.
Seven ponies, all wearing farmer’s hats, all wielding rifles had managed to sneak their way up behind them.
“Stick ‘em up, raider filth!” growled one of them. Sterling frowned. They didn’t look like raiders, did they?
Despite her apparent luck up until this point, it didn’t take a genius to realise that the three of them wouldn’t survive a firefight with these ponies, and she quickly sat down, holding her hooves up. “ We’re not raiders! Please don’t shoot us!”
Nightlight followed her example, sticking up her hooves, Gordo begrudgingly did the same with his claws.

“You sher look like raiders ta’ me!” Rasped an old, one-eyed stallion. His shotgun was levelled squarely at the pegasus-it looked like he was a heartbeat away from firing.
“What in Equestria are you talking about? We don’t-” And then Sterling looked down.
Her mane and coat were bedraggled, and she was covered in bandages and scars. Her stable-suit was ripped in a dozen different places, her raider-stolen saddlebags were soaked in blood and caked in soot, and as she looked at her hooves, she could see they were shaking.
“I-I…” Sterling spluttered out, then slowly began to drop her hooves back down.
“Hey! I said stick em up!” Warned the old stallion again, but Sterling wasn’t listening.
The mood that song had put her in had been destroyed by this interaction. Now the pegasus was back in her own mind. Now she saw that raider again-herself, with bones in her mane and that horrible smile.
Nighlight gave her a worried look, but the pegasus didn’t return it. Instead, Sterling stood, a weary expression on her face as she felt tears well up at the corners of her vision.
“I can’t do this any more.” She said, flatly.

It was as if a weight had washed over her. Sterling shut her eyes and waited for the shots to hit their marks. If these ponies killed her now, she wouldn’t bring any more death to the few good creatures left in the wastes. She wouldn’t be given the chance to become that daemon.
Sterling’s life since she had left the stable had been a series of highs and lows so extreme that she couldn’t understand how any pony could carry on. How could somepony live like this? She was used to a monotonous existence of servitude, and had been thrust out into a world of free-thought and violence. She’d made friends, enemies, she’d saved and ended lives. Sterling had been beaten, blown up, and shot so often that it had already numbed her. What she was experiencing now had to be the last embers of her sanity fading away.

The guns never fired. Sterling realised she was on the ground, shaking. Nightlight was holding her-of course she was. Gordo was speaking to the others, but they didn’t look like they were paying much attention to him.
The old stallion shuffled up to her. “We’re real sorry-like ma’am. We thought y’all were raiders, see?”
He looked at her, pity in his eyes. Sterling made to croak out a response, but no sound would leave her throat. Instead, Nightlight spoke for her. “It’s okay, she just…needs to rest, you wouldn’t happen to be from a nearby town, would you?”
Yes, I need to relax. I need a break.
“As a matter of fact, we are ma’am.” Began the elderly pony. “We make an honest livin’ on tha’ farms, and go out huntin’ the raiders that live around Flanksburg. It’s not far from here, just over that hill” He gestured in some direction Sterling couldn’t see, and Nightlight nodded. “Perfect. We’ll head that way.”
“B-but we c-can’t! Well, I can’t!” Sterling forced out, still lying on the floor. “Last time I went to a town, ponies-”
She felt Nightlight place a hoof over her muzzle, and the pegasus flushed, embarrassed. “Shush, Sterling. You’re in no fit state to be going anywhere else, and I need a break too. You know I'll go wherever you do.”
She wanted to lie to her. To tell Nighlight that she was fine, that she’d spent enough time in Saddlehoof and was fully rested after her days of sleep at the hospital, but she couldn’t. Sterling knew she needed this, and Nightlight knew it too.
It took Nightlight a few more minutes of convincing, but eventually Sterling relented. There was no arguing with the Unicorn if she thought it was for your own good. When Nightlight had brought up the argument that she too needed a break (although Sterling doubted this), she sighed and nodded.

Flanksburg was a small village of old houses and streets that had been patched up by a town of around a hundred ponies. Each house had their own vegetable patch, growing fruits and vegetables Sterling didn’t recognise, and the whole place was surrounded by farmland.
Her head drooping low, Sterling trod into the town on shaky hooves. After a few minutes of chatting with that old stallion again, Nightlight guided the barely awake pegasus towards a form of hostel that had once been one of the larger houses in town.
“Ah, how are ya’ darlings?” began the mare behind the front desk before seeing Sterling. “Yikes, that answers that question.” Nightlight glared at her but the mare calmed her down. “Sorry, Sorry, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, honest!” She chuckled, and the Unicorn’s visage seemed to relax again. “My name is Gooseberry, but for some reason, the folks ‘round here call me ‘Aunty Goose.’ Welcome to the Flanksburg Hostel!”
“Ah, yes, thank you…Aunty Goose…” Nightlight replied awkwardly “We’d like to-”
“Pay for a room? Golly, ah’ve only got the one left! I suppose you two could share, if you’d like.”
Sterling slowly lifted her head in confusion. “What do you mean, what about-” But she stopped herself before she looked around. The pegasus already knew Gordo must have done that disappearing trick he liked to do. She wondered just when it was that he’d vanished.

Half-trotting, half-being carried, Sterling was ushered into their room by the Unicorn. It was small, cozy, and…warm. She could see rain begin to fall outside the window again. Something seemed…
“There’s only one bed.” Sterling said, bluntly.
“Glad you’re still able to tell” giggled Nightlight. “Don’t worry, I don’t snore.”
Her heart rate increasing, the pegasus moved towards the bed, only to be stopped by a hoof on her tail that sent shockwaves down her body.
“What do you think you’re doing? You’ll make it all dirty! Take off your clothes and get into that shower, missy!” Nightlight’s mothering tone took over, and she gestured to the small, frosted glass shower in the corner. Where there had once been a dividing wall, there now was a crumbled hole that had been mostly cleared. Great…
Flushing red now, Sterling slowly began to peel the blood and sweat-soaked stable barding off of herself. Dumping the pile of blue rags on a bench on the far side of the room, she stepped into the shower.
Sterling hated showers.
But not this one.
The public showers in her stable had always been cold and lonely. The only place she could afford to let her true feelings show. This one was…unlike any shower she had ever experienced before! Far smaller, of course, but as the mare scrubbed the complementary soap into her fur, she watched the grease and grime visibly mingle with the water and pour through the drainage grate. As she created a lather in her mane, she watched red mix into the flowing waters. Sterling shut her eyes. She didn’t want to think about that. Instead, she focused on the shower. How nice it felt. How safe shefelt. The pain and brutality of the world that had clinged to her was being washed away as easily as if it were the mud caked around her hooves. She smiled.

“Enjoying ourselves, are we?”
Sterling jolted and yipped, slipping over but being caught in the hooves of her Unicorn friend.
She blushed heavily. “N-Nightlight! I-I didn’t-”
She shushed the pegasus again and smiled. “You’re using up all the hot water, and I don’t wanna pay for more, darling.”
We’re paying for this shower? Sterling supposed it made sense why the public showers had always been cold. In her head, she now assumed that the Earth Ponies and Unicorns simply hadn’t wanted to spend money on warm showers for the pegasi.
“I’m s-sorry but-i’ll get out now!” She squeaked, but Nightlight was blocking the shower door.
“Not so fast, Pegasus.” Snickered the Unicorn. “You’ve missed a bit, behind the ears. Let me help you.”
Before she could interject, Sterling found herself sitting with her back turned to the mare. As the water from the shower head trickled down their backs, she felt the gentle hooves of her friend massage the back of her head. Sterling closed her eyes and shivered. This felt good.
In the dim light of the room, Sterling finally relaxed. She didn’t cry, she didn’t utter a single word. All she could focus on was the gentle caress of the mare and the warm water.
And she could finally forget, just for a moment.

Her eyes involuntarily closing, Sterling stepped over to the bed. She pushed down on it with a hoof, only to be met with unfamiliarity. It was so…soft. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a real bed-was it the hospital? No, that one was too thin, as had been her old one in the stable-but then, all of them had been thin. Did ponies really own beds like these?
“Go on, hurry up, you need to sleep!” Nightlight nudged her forwards, and she gently wriggled her way under the covers. It was as soft as she had always been sure a cloud would be.
“Wow.” Was all she could say. Nightlight giggled and squeezed her way in herself. Feeling a little hot under her now nonexistent collar, Sterling tried to scootch away to the opposite end as much as possible, but found that this bed was just barely big enough for the both of them.
“Hm, It’ll be tight, but it will do.” The Unicorn smiled, using her magic to dim the gaslamp in the corner of the room. “H-hey if you want” Sterling said shakily. She was sure that with the way their bodies were pressed together that the Unicorn could hear her pounding heartbeat. “I could always sleep on the f-floor, I mean this bed clearly wasn’t designed for-”
“No way!” Scolded the Unicorn, and Sterling promptly shut up. “You need this more than I do, you look exhausted!”
As Nightlight spoke those words, it was as if a wave came over her. Sterling suddenly remembered why they were in this town, why it was that they were in a bed now. She gazed out the window and watched the pitter-patter of the rain in the dim moonlight. Closing her eyes, she almost immediately passed out.

Feeling her breathing slow and relax, Nightlight grinned. Mission accomplished.
“Goodnight, little hero.” She spoke softly.