The pair sat in silence as they lounged in the room, the mare happily feasting on a Fancy Lad, and the man polishing his dusty weapons he had laid out on a workbench. The freshly washed towel he was using could not hide the very apparent brain matter that has previously been on it, but neither the mare nor he cared in the slightest: Weapon Maintenance is Weapon Maintenance.

As Carter stole a quick glance at his new companion, his mind wandered toward her survival. A newbie, much less a pony with no hands, had absolutely no way of surviving in here, what with all the Super Mutants, raiders, and Talon Companys presence looming around this very building. Suddenly hitting an epiphany, he stopped wiping his knife and stared blankly into space for at least five minutes, the pony near him not noticing as she threw her face into a box of Sugar Bombs. As his mind suddenly exploded into thousands of questions, bullets, and questionable pictures of women, he began to whistle as he instantly went back to work, oblivious to what had transpired in his head not two seconds ago.

Poking her head out from her chocolatey confinement, Rainbow looked over at the man, an annoyed look on her face and her mouth absolutely covered in fudge. Forelegs akimbo, she looked to the ground and asked,

"Hey, do you, uh, know anypony who could get me some better weapons?"

Turning back around to her, Carter could only smile and nod,

"Of course. Soon as we get outta here, we're goin' to my old friend Moira's place. She's got a lot of stuff you might need. Why, she gave me this when I saved up enough caps forty years ago," he replied, holding out a chinese assault rifle, "If I can, I could get her to mess around with it a bit, I'm sure we could get it to work with your hooves-"

"No, I can do it. I...don't like other people near my hooves," she admitted, shaking her left leg accusingly, "I'm all up for the assault rifle, but I can take care of the modifcations, alright?"

Chuckling, he motioned toward her revolver, cautiously placed on a low table he had acquired for her from a nearby room. Looking toward it, she took it in her teeth and trotted over to him, handing it off as carefully as a newborn child. As Carter looked it over with one eye, flipping it over and over as he examined it, he noticed the handle that had missed his trained eye before.

Nailed to the handle was a makeshift cuff, with two flat sides jutting out the top and bottom ends, three nail-filled holes running along it. Damp padding on the inside suggested that this was the way the mare held the gun, her hoof inside the cuff and against the handle. He looked at the trigger, and noticed it had been flipped to the right, causing it to be pushed to the right instead of being pulled back by a finger. Giving an impressed look and muttering a hmm of acknowledgement, he proceeded to wipe the wear and tear off the chipped cyan paint....

Swiftly turning around once again, he had to question this, "How the hell did you add a handle, remove the trigger mechanism and turn it around, and paint this damn thing with hooves?"

Contemplating for a few seconds, Rainbow looked at her revolver, and replied with a grin, "I...learned from a friend of mine a long time ago. He was a natural at fixing weapons once he found them in the Badlands."

"The Badlands? Sounds like an interesting name."

Looking up at him with a glare, she stared daggers into his eyes for his sympathy, "That's an understatement. That...place was hell for me and my friends. I barely made it out of there alive, okay? My friend could have as well, but he found a way. He always found a way in there.....I guess this place will be my second Badlands....", she said, trailing off with a look of sadness, "It's funny, now it seems so much less painful. This place is getting to me," she spat, brandishing a cocky grin as she blew at a stray orange fetlock, "we should move. You did tell me to keep moving in the Wastes," she reminded him as he closed the bag of weapons she had stashed inside the room.

She trotted over to a nearby desk, and bending her heard, the mare held up a book, making Carter laugh at the large skull on the front and the very serious look of the cover. Wasteland Surival Guide it read, by Moira Brown, with assistance from Carter Thompson!

The mare trotted outside the door, waiting for her companion to catch up. Standing on her hindlegs, her left leg was crossed at her hip, her impatient behavior going unnoticed by the Lone Wanderer as he walked past her and into the main lobby. As he kicked open the door just for her, she smirked at him and walked past, Carter following close behind as he shut the door, bits of ghoul brain still stuck to the knob.

Hefting the clamped bag with a huff of discomfort, he looked down at the mare next to him, calmly trotting a few inches away from him, her newly polished revolver shining in her torn leather holster. She looked on edge, yet nonchalant enough to look as if her sanity was safely locked inside herself. Looking back as she noticed his slower pace, Rainbow looked at him with a face that said Really?, to which Carter just shook his bag, stuck his tongue at her in a playful manner, and stalked off a little faster.

Rainbow, happy with her results, ran up to him again, keeping pace with the previously slow old man. Closing her eyes and grinning, she walked alongside her new friend, her mind at peace for a few blissful seconds in the comfort of the Lone Wanderer...

Eyes snapping open in sudden realization, she turned her head toward the man in question, mouth agape,

"Wait wait wait, you said forty years ago?"

The man nodded in response.

"So just how old are you?!"

Cracking his neck with a grunt, he wiped his hand all over his greying hair, still slightly holding the brown color it once was. His beard was scratched as well as he pondered the question, coughing ever so slightly as he thought. After a minute, he looked over at his bored companion, grinned, and said in a proud voice,

"Uh, about 59, ma'am."

Author's Note

OHAIGUYZ! I'm not dead yet. Don't think I would go so soon at the age of [insert number here]. So you know Carter's age now, as well as how Rainbow uses her gun! And just what happened in the Badlands, huh? Hell, I dunno.... kind of....