Fallout: Equestria: Written in Sand

Introduction

They tell stories of the San Palomino.

They tell how, when, two hundred years ago, the megaspells rained down and tore Equestria asunder, the Desert was spared the worst of the destruction.

It was not spared the fallout.

As the shockwaves subsided and the survivors crept from whatever holes in the sand had saved them, the same brutal, day-to-day struggle for survival greeted them as it did in every corner of the desolation left behind. Amidst the dunes of the San Palomino, ponies fought and died for the scraps the old world had left behind.

The Palomino had taken lives before the End. With heat and dust and thirst. After the End, it would take lives with the heat of anger, the dust of distrust and the thirst for survival.

They tell stories of the San Palomino.

They tell how ponies go there to die. Alone, in the sands. Alone, to take away the sting of failure. Of failing to win against the Wasteland’s merciless game of survival.

That one always made me laugh; you’ll learn why.

They tell stories…

Who are ‘they’?

For two hundred years, the Sun had risen and set on the Palomino, ushering in day after day of struggle and strife and yet the stories never changed.

As the light faded and the heat of day ebbed, campfires would spring up like beacons in the sandy wastes and ponies would gather round and listen as ‘they’ contentedly retold the same stories of the death of the old world and the void it had left behind, to be filled with all the nihilistic selfishness of ponies who could no longer see tomorrow.

Other stories may have come and gone, but that one always remained.

And then I showed up.

And ‘they’ had a new story to tell.

‘My’ story of the Palomino.

I laughed at that one, too.

In truth, the story they tell isn’t mine. It’s about me, but it isn’t mine.

Yes, there is a difference.

For one thing, the story that’s mine has a lot more petty bickering in it.

Go figure.