Fallout Equestria: Dry Tinder
Fallout: Equestria
Tinder
It wasn’t cold, but I shivered. There was no chill on the breeze, but my lip trembled. The mud around my ankles was dry and cracked, but it felt like I’d been dumped into an icy drink. Even in the middle of the night, this place was warm and dry. A dark moonless night with a warm wind in the air and Stars twinkling overhead. I could barely see a few metres in any direction with how dark it was.
An arid foxhole in no mare's land. I could smell rotten corpse, even with the rag I’d tied around my face. A soldier once joked to me that I could pee on it if I hated the smell that much. I can smell that pony now, newly dead just this morning.
What was his name? Some young kid, fresh from school and headed straight to the front lines, eager to ‘wipe the stripes’. He bragged all day long about how many zebras he was gonna take down his first battle. Nopony was surprised that he pissed himself when the first shells landed, and nopony was surprised when he was the first one to take a bullet in the ass running away.
Sweet damn Celestia, what was his name? I remember what he looked like perfectly, a coltish stallion with freckles, brown fur, and a thin frame for an earth pony. I remember his annoying voice, slightly high pitched with a country twang. And his cutie mark, a red bullseye, and the way he bragged about winning it in a shooting competition. But even with all that, for the life of me I can’t remember his name.
Who else was in my squad? Was being the primary word. My sergeant was... a gruff stallion. He was average sized for an earth pony, but huge for a unicorn. He had a voice like gravel in a blender, and enough scars to put the rest of us combined to shame. I’d never seen his cutie mark, but everyone said his special talent was actually poetry. And his name was...
I slammed my hoof in frustration. “This shouldn’t be that hard!” I shouted up at the starry sky. “They died just this afternoon, Rose! Why can’t you remember them?!”
Because you never cared, some little voice inside me replied. Because you always knew they were going to die, just like you’re going to die. You never learned anything about them, and they never learned about you. That way they weren’t ponies. Just numbers.
“...Shut up,” I replied, “Nopony asked you.”
A dusty foxhole in no mare’s land. Zebras in one direction, ponies in the other, and mile upon mile of blasted, dusty wasteland in between. I need to go back, not just to pony lines, but all the way back to Equestria. Who was I ever kidding? Roseluck the soldier? The pale short mare with the pretty face, that fainted at a horde of rabbits and ran away at any sign of danger.
Who the fuck accepted my application into the army? What genius stamped the form that decided I should be fighting on the front lines? I can’t be the only one that’s realized how terrible an idea this was.
You were the one that signed up. They wouldn’t have sent you if-
“Shut up!” I snarled at me. After a second I blinked, and chuckled. When the laughter died I said, “Oh, Luna... I’m going insane.”
Going... going... gone. Post-Traumatic Stress is a heck of a thing, and that’s not counting your growing schizophrenia due to self-imposed isolation.
I sat there for a moment, thinking about what I just said. “I need to get home. I can’t stay here...”
Do you think Lily and Daisy will even recognise you anymore?
I had no answer. Tears formed in my eyes, and I bit my lip as I thought about them. Had the war changed them the way it changed me? They weren’t soldiers, they were civilians, fighting on the home front to make the war possible for soldiers like me. It couldn’t have been as bad for them. The most they had to deal with was demanding hours and the day-to-day horrors of bad coffee and getting up early. They couldn’t be damaged, could they? They had to be fine, didn’t they?
“It doesn’t matter,” I told the voice. “I need them. I need to get out of here, get back to Equestria and... hire a psychiatrist or something...”
You’d need to get out of here first, the voice replied.
I swallowed a mouthful of air, and buried myself deeper into the foxhole. There was a reason I was still alive, and everypony else was dead. It was a simple reason, one that made more and more sense. I’d hidden when we were ordered to move out, so I hadn’t been in the open when the mortars fell. When the compressed air launched a tiny explosive through the sky and right in the midst of all those ponies whose names I couldn’t even remember.
Were they still out there? The zebras with their sniper rifles and explosives and disgusting necromancy, just waiting on the ridge for somepony to stick their head out so they could strike them down with a bullet or shrapnel or necromantic plague...
I gulped and snuggled deeper into my hole.
If you stay here, you’ll just be here when the zebras move forward. Completely alone and fighting what could be hundreds of them.
A whimper escaped me, and before I even thought about it, I almost jumped out of the hole. I hesitated though, freezing right before.
No, no. I had to run. There was no time for freezing or hesitation, just bolt. The dark would make it hard for anypo-zebra to shoot me, and if I moved fast I could be back at base in just half an hour. I needed to move.
I went to jump, but again I froze.
“Come on Rose!” I whispered to myself. “You can do this. Just run. It’s what you’ve always done, it’s what you do best. Just run.”
Okay, okay, on three. Run on three.
One. I unbuckled my helmet and set it aside. It was dead weight, and if a zebra shot me in the head it wouldn’t save me anyway. Two. I crouched on my rear legs, ready to dive out of the foxhole. Three. I hesitated again.
Damn it! Why couldn’t I just climb out of that hole and run?
There was too much weight. Yeah, that was why I hadn’t left. Too much dead weight slowing me down. I didn’t need my rifle, I wasn’t going to shoot anyzebra with that at this range, or my ammo for it. Or the grenades. I’d need bandages and medicine though, in case I tripped over and cut myself.
Or get shot by a zebra.
“Shut up!” I snapped. Probably a good idea to keep the pistol, it wasn’t heavy and I might need a way to protect myself.
Or kill yourself to prevent capture.
I ignored me and kept going. I’ll need food and water, in case I get stuck in another foxhole.
My voice didn’t offer any comment.
Alright, so I’d ditched all the dead weight. I was ready to go. Nothing holding me back, all I had to do was jump out of the foxhole, and run.
But you won’t.
“Yes I will.”
No you won’t.
“I will,” I growled firmly.
Prove me wrong.
“Fine then!” I barked and hopped out of the hole. It was only when I did that I realised what I’d just done.
I stiffened, one hoof raised to run and my eyes wide and scanning the darkness. Then I bolted. Fear took over and I just ran for my life towards Equestria. I don’t how long I ran for, but it had to be a while. My hooves pounding against the ground, barely seeing a few feet ahead of me in the dark, I ran like my life depended on it.
Then a stray black branch blinked into my vision, and I tripped over, slamming face first into the ground and rolling to a halt. I didn’t move for a moment, just lay there panting and staring at the sky as my face stung from impact.
Then I started laughing. I’d completely lost it. If a zebra hadn’t shot me yet, a zebra wasn’t going to shoot me, or blow me up, or curse me. My paranoia had completely taken over. Honestly, how could I have hidden in that hole for so long? If the zebras thought the unit was dead they wouldn’t stick around just waiting to potshot one mare. They probably hadn’t even known I was in the damn hole!
It wasn’t funny, but I couldn’t stop myself laughing. The rag over my mouth had come loose, I could taste bits of sand on my tongue and gums, and it was hilarious too. I don’t know how long I lay there laughing like a crazy mare, because I was a crazy mare, before I sat up and wiped the tear out from under my eye.
“I’ve completely lost it.”
Completely, I agreed.
I looked up at the night sky, opening my mouth to give a prayer of thanks to Luna when I saw something that made me freeze. Something terrifying.
A streak of light in the sky. More than one. Hundreds of streaks, heading north and south, towards Equestria and Zebrica.
“...No,” I whispered, “Oh, sweet Luna, please, no...”
Mega-spells. Hundreds, no thousands, headed right to the homes of the innocent and the helpless. The entire magical arsenal of two nations levelled against eachother. Enough magic to destroy...
“...Everything,” I said quietly, my voice cracking. “Everypony, Equestria... Daisy, Lilly...”
It would be daytime in Ponyville. Thanks to the time zone difference, it’d be nearly midday when those bombs land. My friends would be talking, going about their day like nothing was wrong, and then there would be sirens. Ponies wailing and screaming and running for shelter, grabbing their children and all heading for any place they could survive. Then a flash of light, and then...
A sob burst from my chest.
And then...
I shivered, even though I was hot and sweaty from running, and I hugged myself.
And then...
Nothing.
Another sob, and I fell to the ground shuddering.
Daisy was dead. Lilly was dead. Ponyville was dead. Everypony was dead.
Looking like nothing but shooting stars, the mega-spells passed overhead harmlessly as I cried into the earth. I couldn’t do anything. No pony could. This was it, this was where the war had always been heading . It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t Luna’s fault, it wasn’t even the zebras’ fault. It was everyone’s. We all marched down this road, and this was where it stopped.
Why did we do that? Oh, sweet Luna why? How could it have seemed like the right thing to do at the time? How had any amount of good intentions led us here? Why, dear Celestia, why? Why would we do that?
Curled up and whimpering, I shivered and wailed as everything ended. I wouldn’t get the help I needed, I wouldn’t go back to Equestria, there was nothing to go back to. I’d be safer here, a soldier on a battlefield in no mare’s land, away from the radiation and fire, than I would be in my own home drinking Sparkle Cola with my best friends.
That would have been funny, if it wasn’t so bloody tragic.
I started to sing, because I felt like I had to. There had to be someway I could commemorate the end of everything and everyone. I had nothing though, the best I could do was a twelve gun salute with one pistol. Which I couldn’t do because I might need the ammo. So, I sang the first song that came to my head.
“Maybe tomorrow, when the sun comes out and melts my flesh away,
Maybe tomorrow, when the toxic clouds just take our breath away,
And it'll be alright when the dark sets in and the screams all fade away,
Maybe tomorrow; there'll be no one to save...”
Another sob racked me, and I couldn’t manage any more than that. I lay there weeping as the world ended, hugging myself and crying while everything died.
Eventually, I ran out of tears and sat up, staring at the death of all. I sniffled again, and reached for my pistol. The cold metal tasted bitter in my mouth, before I spat it out on the ground in front of me. I searched around in my pockets for a moment, until I came up with a pencil. The same pen I’d used to write letter to Lilly and Daisy. I stared at it for a moment, wondering if there was something wrong with using it for this. After a moment, I shrugged. It wasn’t like it mattered anyway.
I slid the pen in between the trigger and the guard, and shifted the gun so its barrel was pointed at me. All it’d take to make it fire, was for me to press down on that pen. That’s all I’d have to do, and this would all be over.
Trembling and gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and looked away. One shot, straight to the chest. It’d be quicker. Just do it.
I glanced back at the pistol, and saw that the barrel was still staring at me. My lower lip trembled and I looked away again with a whimper.
On three. Just do it on three.
One.
“Forgive me, please,” I begged the night sky.
Two.
I tensed my shoulder, ready to push that pen down and the trigger with it.
One.
I kicked the pistol away, and yelped as it fired in another direction. After a moment, I lay down trembling and sobbing.
You’re not gonna do it.
I just drew in a deep shuddering breath.
You’re a coward Rose, a survivor. Your life is too important to you.
“I should never have come here...” I whispered. “I should never have signed that paper.”
Maybe not, but at least you’ll be getting something a lot of ponies didn’t. A chance to survive.
I thought I was out of tears, but it turns out I was wrong. The world ended, and somehow I lived on. Somehow I’m still alive when there’s nothing left worth living for. Rose the coward hid away and survived armageddon itself, only to take her own life anyway.
Talk about a punch line.
Standing up, I walked over to my pistol and holstered it.
Then I sat there and watched. It was a while before I saw a flash of light on the Equestrian horizon. A tiny green flicker to my south, just as the first rays of the sun pinkened the sky to the east. That was it. That was all I saw of the deaths of millions.
“Goodbye everypony,” I whispered. “Lilly, Daisy, I’ll meet you there in a bit.”