Fallout: Equestria - Martingale Fairytale

Chapter 2 – Hope

Stable 222 had been a mastery of pre-war engineering, a pair of Stables linked by a common area, held against the marshy ground by massive concrete pillars that acted as friction brakes. And yet, for all that engineering, it had been built underneath a tool shed. It was barely big enough to contain the trap door and the twenty survivors as huddled together in there. On pure instinct, the same instinct that had been driving me to do it in the evacuation, I brought up light on the tip of my horn again, flooding the tool shed in soft, blue light.

Nineteen pairs of eyes looked up at me, as if waiting for me to speak. I looked back at them, taking in the sight. Of the zebras, there was one full family, the parents and a filly. Two stallions stood by, as well as two colts (the one I'd saved among them), and a filly with a young foal on her back. On the pony side of things, another full family, this time with two kids, a colt and a filly. In addition, two mares held each other close, looking terrified. A stallion, a mare, a filly and a colt rounded up the rest of the technicolour cast of ponies.

I sighed, and opened my mouth to speak. Instead, I only managed to start coughing raucously. I had inhaled a lot of smoke, and my throat was as dry as a bone. I covered my snout as I coughed, then eventually relaxed.

I looked over the group again. They were still silent, looking at me. Apparently, being one of the heads of the Stable made me the unofficial leader. I shifted a little, uncomfortable. I had never been good at talking, especially to crowds. I cleared my throat, then finally began speaking. “I'm not going to lie. This... is not good.” I got a sarcastic snort from a pony stallion, and I glared at him. The red stallion shut up immediately. Like I said... not good at talking.

“I don't know what happens now. I don't know if we're the only survivors. But... whatever happens, I promise I'll keep you all safe.” I looked at the group, which seemed to nod collectively.

“Where are we?” the zebra colt I'd saved asked. He was grey, with crimson stripes and a matching mane. I took a look around the shed, thinking of an answer, and after a moment, it finally seemed to kick in. With the chaos and the fear that had struck me during the evacuation of the Stable, I had been relying on instinct to use my horn for light, and as such, almost totally forgot about the PipBuck strapped to my foreleg. Cursing my own forgetfulness, I lifted my left foreleg and checked the little display. I went to the map function, waiting for the map-making spell to begin updating. All of a sudden, one of the zebras, a young stallion, spoke.

“Martingale. Outside Neigh Orleans.”

We all looked at the source of the voice. He looked barely old enough to be called a stallion, and he scratched a hoof against his black-and-white striped neck in embarrassment at the sudden attention he was getting.

“My Dad was one of the scavengers. He told me about this place,” he explained. I didn't doubt the zebra, but I checked the map anyways. Sure enough, it was labelled as Martingale, and more specifically, the Martingale train station. I could see the other equines checking their PipBucks, coming to the same conclusion.

I looked at the zebra. “What's your name?” I asked softly.

“Kusafiri, sir.”

“No need for sir, here. Just Bean, or Doc Bean if you have to,” I said with a bit of a reassuring smile. The zebra flashed one back, and I looked around.

“Kusafiri, your father tell you anything else?” I asked.

The zebra seemed to think it over, then nodded. “He and some of the other scavengers made little stashes around the train and station. In case we had to evacuate, si-... Doc. But... I don't know how to get to Neigh Orleans from here.”

I nodded to myself. I looked at the door to the shed, then floated out my energy pistol, then steel myself. This had the possibility to be dangerous, and I wanted to be ready for whatever was on the other side of the door.

“Stay back,” I cautioned in a quiet voice.

I cracked the door open a little to take a glance out. For the moment, all seemed quiet. I saw no movement, heard nothing but the wind through the trees. I watched for a solid minute before looking back at the equines, who were all quiet, waiting for my signal.

“PipBuck lights on,” I instructed. “We'll move quietly. I think I can see the train station. Is anypony else armed?” I asked.

To my surprise, a few weapons were drawn. One of the stallions, the father in the pony family, had a small pocket pistol, a 9mm. A pony mare had a kitchen knife with her, and the other zebra stallion that wasn't Kusafiri had a baseball bat. Not much... but we weren't unarmed at least.

“Okay. You, with the gun,” I pointed to the stallion.

“Ginger Beer.”

“Ginger Beer, you'll be behind us, covering our rear. You, and you-” I pointed to the mare and the zebra with the weapons. “Follow along the sides. The rest of you, stay between us four. If anything goes wrong, don't run, let us take care of it.”

I got a chorus of assent, and turned to open the door, and trotted out.

It was the first time any of us had ever seen the outside world. The night was mostly clear, and I heard a filly behind me gasp at the sight of the stars above us. I looked up for just a moment to take in the sight myself. The cloud cover was patchy, but thick where it existed. I could see stars shining through large gaps and holes, and even part of the moon. The clouds drifted slowly, causing the shapes of the starry fields to shift and change. The sky looked infinitely deep, and for a moment, I felt a little afraid, having lived in a sealed in Stable my whole life. Yet by the same token, it was amazing.

“It's beautiful,” the zebra mare said softly. I agreed wholeheartedly. It was incredibly beautiful.

Ahead of us, I could see a building silhouetted in the night. As we approached, I came to see another shape nearby, that of a large train. I turned toward the building first, leading the group that way.

“Kusafiri,” I called. “Any idea where these stashes are?”

“No clue, Doc.”

I nodded, deciding the search could start in the morning. According to my PipBuck, it was getting near four in the morning. It wouldn't be long until dawn, but we could at least get some rest.

I trotted up to the train station, the light from the group's PipBucks lighting it as we passed. It was a long building, a single storey with a tall roof. A squared cupola shot out from the middle, above the curved bay window of the ticket office. I looked through the front doors, and it was eerily empty. A push on the door revealed it to be unlocked, and we all entered the waiting room. The waiting room was a large room, with a semi-circle to our right with a bench under it and even more bay windows.

It appeared to me as if ponies had been here, at least recently. There were areas where the dust hadn't accumulated, and the trash had appeared to be moved. There were no bodies, despite the luggage piled in a corner, so somepony must have moved them. A cursory check of the ticket office and the back storage rooms revealed that it'd been picked clean of most essential items, leaving behind just various bits and pieces, like pencils and coffee mugs.

By the time I had cleared the back rooms with Ginger Beer, most of the younger ponies and zebras were curled up on the bench at the far end of the station, beneath the curved series of windows. The adults were either nearby, sitting on the twin benches in the middle, or else just curled up on the floor. The children were sleeping, but I noticed that most of the adults appeared to still be awake.

I looked over at Ginger Beer, and gave him a nod. He went off to comfort his wife, while I found myself a spot and curled up near the door. I closed my eyes, but found myself unable to rest. All I could see when I closed my eyes were vivid images of the escape. The vent cover smashing into a mare, snapping her neck. The burning stallion. The choking, hellish red-tinted smoke. Fed up with trying to sleep and just seeing nightmares, I quietly trotted out onto the platform to sit in the open air.

I wasn't out there five minutes when the door opened again. A pony mare, the marefriend of the one with the kitchen knife, trotted over to sit next to me.

“You should rest,” I advised in a quiet voice, watching the sky begin to slowly brighten.

“Can't sleep,” the mare said. I looked over, trying to place her. I recognized her, I thought.

“You should at least try... uh... ?”

“Peach Tea.”

“Right,” I said softly. “I can't either.” I found myself wondering what we were going to do, and where we would go. The station was nice, but there was nothing there. No food, no water, until we could find the stashes at least, and those wouldn't hold out. I consulted the map on my PipBuck, while Peach Tea watched me with a curious expression on her face.

“What?” I asked, looking over at her. I didn't quite like it when ponies watched me work, so it came out a bit snippier than I'd wanted.

“Just wondering if you have a plan. You seem... concentrated,” the mare said.

I laughed quietly, bitterly, looking up at the slowly lightening sky. “I barely even know where we are. I've only heard from the scavengers, never been up here myself,” I explained. I was terrified... they all saw me as a leader. I wasn't, not in my mind. I had no idea if I could keep these ponies safe. I was no leader.

“But you know what to do, right?” Peach Tea asked. I looked over at her, and saw the fear on her face.

“I'll figure it out,” I said simply, a small smile on my face. It was a fake smile, because I sure didn't feel all that confident. Neverthless, I gave her a one-legged hug, and looked back over the forest around us, still thinking about how we were going to survive the first few days.

~~O~~

The dawn came an hour later. I watched it, having never seen one outside of a movie before. Peach Tea stood beside me the entire time. It was an image that would stay with me for the rest of my life, and it was stunningly beautiful. The sky began to brighten, and the colours shifted, from blue to shades of orange, as a circle of bright light, diffused by the clouds on the horizon, slowly crested the trees.

“Wow,” the young mare breathed.

“You said it,” I mumbled in return. With the sun out, I saw the cloud cover in better detail. It was odd: in places it was thick, looking nearly solid, but in other places it was shredded open, as if a great claw had torn the clouds. It didn't look natural, like photos of the old Equestria I'd seen, with all their fluffy clouds. I found myself wondering if there were still pegasi around that were working the weather still... and that made me wonder whether they were trying to break the cloud cover, or thicken it, though to what purpose, I couldn't begin to guess.

We watched the sunrise for a few more minutes, then turned back and entered the station. It took another twenty minutes for everypony to wake up. By then, I'd organized the adults into a little conference around a map that was hanging in the ticket office.

“Okay. We're here,” I said, tapping my hoof on a small dot on the map. The nearest township we could see was a small town called Bakersmill, between the train station and the town of Neigh Orleans itself, which I estimated was about a day's trot away, as the crow flies.

“Should reach Neigh Orleans in about a day. Bakersmill, by mid day, if we move fast.” Of course, I was estimating as if I would be doing it, alone. I wasn't an athlete, but I could still move quickly. However, the young ones in the group would slow us down significantly.

“I'm not very comfortable heading straight there, not yet,” a zebra stallion, who's name I learned was Ngao, stated. I looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. “We have a lot of young with us. A long trip to Bakersmill will be difficult, and there's no guarantee there'll be food or shelter when we get there. Could be wiped out. We don't even know if we have the supplies to get there one way.”

“There's ponies there. My Dad said so,” Kusafiri said confidently.

I looked at the young zebra. “When was the last time he and his team went out?”

“Two months.”

I looked over at the map, considering something, while Ngao spoke up.

“Two months is a lot of time, Kusafiri. They might not be around, and they might even be trouble.”

“He has a point,” Ginger Beer said with a nod. “They might not let us into the city, or whatever shelter they have.”

“But we have a foal with us! And children! They can't just turn us away,” Ginger Beer's wife, a pegasus mare, pointed out.

“Rain, honey, this isn't like the Stable. We don't know what kind of ponies are out here,” Ginger replied.

“Well, what do you all suggest?” I asked, looking up at the assembled group.

One of the other zebra stallions spoke up. Mwanga was his name, as I'd learned from Kusafiri. “Ku, what's this?” His hoof was pressed to a certain spot on the map.

We all looked at it. It was a large, circular clearing off the main road into town, near the winding river that passed through Neigh Orleans and Bakersmill. Whatever was there, it wasn't far from us, maybe a two hour trot at most.

“I don't know. Dad and the scavengers just went right to Bakersmill, they never looked around the forest,” Kusafiri replied.

“I can fly up, take a look?” Rain Maker suggested. We all looked at the mare, who stretched some blue wings.

“I don't know who, or what, is in the area though. I don't want to attract too much attention to us,” I pointed out.

The mare giggled a bit, pointing at the window that sat in front of the station master's desk. Another mare stood out there, with a coat of bright pink, watching over the fillies and colts with the help of another one of the ponies, the red stallion (also a pegasus) that had snorted at me during my little speech in the shed the night before. The children were playing around the train and tracks, clearly enjoying themselves.

“I'll bet those kids are loud enough that if anypony wanted to, they'd find us,” Rain pointed out.

I nodded. It made sense to me. “Well, I'm okay,” I said. The others gathered murmured in assent, and Rain Maker kissed her husband, Ginger Beer, then headed for the door.

“Okay. While she's out... Kusafiri, what about the stashes your father mentioned? They're around here, right?” I asked.

The zebra nodded. “I don't know where though.”

“Okay. Ginger, Ngao, Kusafiri, Peach.” I pointed to each pony in turn. “You four search the station. Mwanga, Dewdrop, Elekezi,” Dewdrop being Peach Tea's marefriend, the one with the knife, and Elekezi being Ngao's husband, one of the zebras. “You three come with me. We'll search the train.”

With a nod, the group split, and we headed outside.

The train was unlike any I'd ever seen. Most pony trains were short, metal where needed, wooden otherwise. They were powered by a team of ponies pulling it along, with the steam engine used only on certain occasions or for long hauls.

The train that sat on the tracks outside the station was enormous. Nearly thirty feet long and half that high, it was all iron, with two pairs of four massive wheels in the middle, and two pairs of smaller wheels on either side of them. At the end of the long, cylindrical body were a pair of wings tucked alongside the train, and an eagle's beak, the mouth wide open, graced the front over the cowcatcher. A single, shattered headlamp stuck out from the beak. Above it was a small plate, faded with time, but the numbers were still legible: 6218. The same letters appeared on the sides of the cab, just as chipped and faded.

“That's one ugly looking train,” Mwanga commented. I had to disagree. It was definitely blunt looking, more utilitarian than beautiful, but to get something so big and so heavy to move was rather incredible. That being said, it likely no longer moved.

“Looks like griffon-make. My grandpa had a model of a griffon ship, looked like this. Made to work, not to be pretty,” Elekezi commented.

I looked back at the others. “I'll search the cab. The rest of you check the cars. Go through it with a fine-tooth comb, I don't want to miss anything,” I instructed, climbing up into the cab. I heard the others trot away.

The interior of the cab confirmed Elekezi's suspicions. The controls were a mess of levers and knobs, none of which could easily be manipulated by pony hooves, and all of them were labelled in the guttural language of griffons: 'dampfdruck', a dial next to my head announced. 'Bremshebel', a lever nearby proclaimed. I look a look around the cramped cab, but there wasn't much to see.

I turned to leave, before something caught my attention. A lever in front of the half-circle door of the firebox. I didn't know exactly what 'feuerraum'  meant, but it didn't take a genius to guess what the lever was for. I grabbed the lever between my forehooves and pulled down.

With a shriek of rusted metal on metal, the door to the locomotive's firebox shifted open, just a little. Barely an inch, despite all the force I was throwing onto the lever. I grunted in effort and pushed harder, throwing all my weight into the push. More grinding, then suddenly the lever gave and the firebox flew open. The sudden lack of tension sent me sprawling to the dirty wood floor of the cab.

I got up and brushed my clothing off, then turned to look at the firebox. I activated the lamp on my PipBuck, and got closer to the open steel doors. The inside of the firebox was covered in ash and half-burned lumps of coal. Then, toward the right side of the box came a glimmer of light on metal, and I noticed a stainless steel toolbox sitting there, toward the back. The numbers “222“ were printed on the side, and easily visible.

I wrapped the toolbox is a glow of magic and yanked it across the firebox and out into the cab. With hope rising, I quickly unclasped it and opened the box. As soon as I saw the contents, I let out a happy little shout.

Stuffed inside the toolbox were six emergency ration packs, and four sealed water bottles. It wasn't a lot, but it was a start. A note was taped to the inside of the lid: “Eat, drink, and good luck. - Stable 222 Scout Team A.” I smiled and shut the toolbox, floating it with me as I stepped back out of the cab.

I made my way along the row of cars. Five cars, plus a caboose at the end. The car in the middle had a strange metal bulge at the top, split down the middle. I looked at it, trying to determine what it would be, just as Dewdrop, Peach Tea's marefriend, stepped out. I looked over at them and nodded to the toolbox. She smiled sadly and shook her head. “Nothing. This car was totally empty... just a bunch of open crates. Said stuff like... waffen and kugeln on it, but there was nothing but packing paper in there,” she explained.

“Ah. What's that little bulge at the top?” I asked.

The unicorn shrugged. “No idea. There was a ladder dropped down from the ceiling, but the hatch was locked,” she explained.

As we spoke, the other two, Mwanga and Elekezi, stepped out of the cars they'd been searching. Elekezi had found another toolbox much like the one I had, while Mwanga had found nothing.

“Alright, well, that's something,” I said, looking at the train. “Let's check these last cars.”

I went to the caboose with Mwanga, while Dewdrop and Elekezi checked the other cars. The caboose was picked through as well, the only things left being various papers, and a tin kettle on the stove. I checked the water supply, but the container was empty. The various cabinets were all empty as well. The only thing that appeared to be untouched was a locker near the back door. A padlock hung from it, one that was far too shiny and new to have been there from the war.

“Any ideas?” I asked Mwanga.

The zebra stallion nodded. “Stand back, this might get messy,” Mwanga said simply. He turned and and bucked the lock, hard. I hear it crack, but it took another two bucks for the hasp to snap properly. I nodded, quite impressed. I was no pushover, but there was no way I could buck a solid metal lock. Mwanga was built a little tougher than I.

With the lock smashed, we pried the locker open. I was expecting to find it full, what I wasn't expecting was to find another hooflocker inside, like one of those dolls from Stalliongrad. The hooflocker wasn't locked, and it was different than the toolboxes we'd found, despite it's origin likely being Stable 222. Curiously, I opened it.

“Oh, shit yeah,” Mwanga said with a grin.

Inside the hooflocker were a pair of shotguns. I recognized them as being from the Stable armoury, having seen them in the possession of some of the guards during the riots. However, while those had been loaded with non-lethal rounds, I had a feeling the four drum magazines tucked in among the guns were full of very, very lethal shells. We now had weapons to protect ourselves, and some food to help survive. I took one of the guns, loading one drum and stuffing the other in my saddlebag. Mwanga did the same, his drum ending up in a pocket on his barding.

We trotted out of the caboose. Elekezi and Dewdrop were there with another metal toolbox of food and water. That was good. Just enough food for us to last for a day or two, and some water to boot. As we made our way back to the train station, I saw Rain Maker coming in from over the building. She landed in front of the station and followed us inside.

“You find anything?” I called out to the team that had been searching inside. Ginger Beer looked over at us and shook his head.

“Nope,” Ginger Beer said simply.

I looked around. “Where are the kids?”

“With Berry Medley. She's in the stationmaster's office, keeping them entertained with some stories,” Ngao explained, coming to join us. “What's in the toolboxes?”

“Food, courtesy of the scavengers. And they left us these guns. Here,” I said. I passed mine and its spare drum to Ngao, who took it with a word of thanks. Mwanga offered up the other one, and to my surprise, it was Peach Tea who took it. She loaded it rather expertly, and we all looked at her as she did. She was the last pony I would have ever expected to grab the shotgun.

“What?” she asked. “I worked in the armoury.”

“Alright,” I said after a moment. “Rain Maker, what did you find?” I asked, looking over at the mare.  She ran a hoof through her dark blue-grey mane, trying to smooth it out, before answering.

“That clearing's a mansion. Big one. I had to fly out a ways to see it, but it's there, sitting pretty on a hill. I also got a good look at Bakersmill from above while I was out... saw a bit of smoke. Somepony's gotta be there,” the mare reported.

“Told ya they'd still be there,” Kusafiri said confidently.

I couldn't help but chuckle. “Alright. So there's ponies there. I'm still not comfortable heading straight there, so how about we check out that mansion?” I suggested.

“It looks to be in one piece. And it's pretty close,” Rain Maker said.

“We could bring the kids there, then head out in a small group to Bakersmill,” Elekezi suggested. I looked up at her, nodding and letting her continue. “There might be food there. And it's gotta be more comfortable than the station. At the very least, it'll be a place to stay if Bakersmill won't take us in.”

“Sounds good to me. Anypony got any objections, or suggestions of their own?” I asked.

The group shook their heads, and I nodded, standing up.

“Let's get to it then.”

~~O~~

It was slow going. It took us a little over two hours to find the small driveway that led off the main highway, both because it was well hidden, and because nopony, from the children to the adults, were used to such a long walk. We'd spent most of our lives in a Stable that, while bigger than most, was still a contained, underground structure. Long walks were taken around the common area, if at all. Compounding that problem was the heat: it was already hot and humid, despite the relatively early hour of the morning, and most of us were already drenched in sweat. However, while the children complained, the adults stayed quiet. We had to press on, no matter what.

I started looking around at the trees on either side of the road. The war that had come to Equestria seemed not to have hit Martingale, because the trees were still... not alive, but not dead. Some trees were scorched, dead looking, while others were simply parched. It was making me uneasy, because of how everything seemed almost normal, and yet there was a dead silence. No sounds of ponies, no animals. Just the breeze through the trees.

I also started to guess as to why the area was called Martingale. Like the eponymous bit of tack, the branches of the forest were forcing our heads down, as they'd grown wild and tangled, even across the driveway toward the house. It was difficult to see more than a few steps ahead of us, even when we'd reached the end. I was almost surprised when we'd finally stumbled out of the forest and into the clearing.

“Wow!” a colt exclaimed.

“Would ya look at that...” Elekezi added.

A hill grew out of the clearing, its sides gently sloping down toward us, while the driveway we stood on arced up toward the mansion that rested on the hill. A massive rectangular structure, the mansion stood two and a half storeys high. At one point, it must have been quite the stately building, with its six pairs of tall columns around the front porch, and the tall, peaked roof over the main stairs. However, two hundred years of disrepair, and one major war, had been rough on the mansion. Even from the base of the hill, I could see the columns were darkened with age, the roof was missing a number of shingles, and the bricks were scorched in places. Aside from minor superficial damage, the mansion seemed to be mostly intact.

Finally, some good news.

“See? What'd I tell ya!” Rain Maker said with a proud grin.“Bit of spit polish, it'll look good as new!”  She was halfway up the driveway already, having broken our travelling formation. Her wings were flared in excitement, and I couldn't help but chuckle. “Come on, Windy, Fire!” she called out to her children, galloping up the path toward the mansion.

Ginger Beer, and their children ran to catch up to her. This caused a rush of movement as the other fillies and colts charged up the hill, followed by us adults. The kids cheered, eager to see their new home, and I too was excited to see what the interior looked like.

“What do you think it's called?” the red pegasus stallion asked me. His name was Lode Stone, if I remembered correctly.

“What?” I asked, looking over at him. He shrugged.

“You know. All those old, fancy mansions in the stories had names. Like... Rosecliff, this mansion in a book I read,” he explained.

Berry Medley, who was on my other side, looked up at the mansion as we approached. “Why don't we call it Hope?” she suggested. Lode Stone and I looked at her. “Hope Manor. It's fitting, isn't it?”

I nodded in agreement, climbing the steps to the front door of the newly christened Hope Manor. “Yeah. It is a good name,” I said simply, smiling a bit. I confess I was quite excited myself as I stepped through the front door, and took my first look down the wide hallway that ran straight through the building to a set of doors on the far side.

Hope Manor had seen better days. Paint peeled in some areas, some windows were cracked and broken, others boarded up, and the back door hung loose in its frame. Nevertheless, it was intact, and a quick sweep revealed that there were no bones or bodies. Jdging from the thick layer of dust that covered everything and the lack of bodies, I figured nopony had entered Hope since even before the War. The dust was almost choking, and by the time we'd examined the entire mansion, from the living room, study and kitchen on the first floor to the rooms above, most of us were sneezing and coughing like mad.

Still, it was nice and safe, with room for us all. Of course, we had to share the rooms, but in the end we'd all have a comfortable spot to lay our heads. The mansion itself was big enough for the kids to amuse themselves exploring, and the books in the library were faded, but legible. There was even a grand piano in one room, though it was out of tune, and nopony knew how to play anyways.

And above all, it had food. Lots of food. The fridge did have some perishables in it (and by Celestia was that smell disgusting), but the cupboards and pantry were mostly filled with non-perishable food. If I had to guess, I'd say there was enough for us to last at least a week, maybe more if we ate light. That was more than enough time to go and find more in Bakersmill and beyond.

All said, I felt confident. I'd made the decision to come here as the group's leader, and it had paid off for the better. Now I just hoped that my next decision would work as well. I went around the mansion, gathering up the equines as I went along, to have a little meeting. We gathered in the living room, the brightest and biggest on the first floor. Most equines had settled onto the dusty couches and chairs, while Kusafiri and Lode Stone were at the fireplace, trying to get a pair of rusty sabres down from a mounting plaque.

I looked around at the gathered crowd, noting they were all bright and happy, in stark comparison to the expressions of doubt and hopelessness I'd seen in the shed of the train station, just a few hours before. I now understood exactly why Berry Medley had named this place Hope. “Welcome, fillies and gentlecolts, to Hope Manor,” I started with a smile.

Before I could continue, the group cheered, and I found my little smile growing. For the first time since the escape, everypony seemed truly happy, and I was starting to feel more confident as the group's leader.

“Settle down, come on. Okay, so, we've got food, we've got shelter. But we're going to need a lot more food, and fast. I'm going to head to Bakersmill to search for food, and see if anypony's there,” I explained, looking around at the group. “If there's ponies there, I want to see if they can help us. I only want a small group, to not attract too much attention. Any volunteers?”

A white and black striped hoof shot up from near the fireplace. Kusafiri had managed to extract one of the sabres, and was currently examining it. “I'll go,” he said simply. “I want to see the town. I can handle myself, don't worry. Besides, my Dad used to talk to me about it, so I can maybe help.”

He did have a point. I looked around for more volunteers, and another hoof came up, this one a clear, light green. “Count me in,” Ginger Beer said.

I nodded. “Good. That'll be enough. The rest of you, take it easy. And uh... maybe clean a bit,” I said with a chuckle. As if to underscore what I said, somepony shifted on the couch and sneezed, sending up even more dust from the cushions.

“How long will you be gone?” Rain Maker asked. She seemed a little concerned, and rightly so. I was taking her husband along, after all.

I shrugged, looking over at her. “I don't know. Two days, maybe three,” I said. “It won't be long, hopefully.”

I turned to look at Kusafiri and Ginger Beer. “You two, get ready to go. We're leaving in ten minutes,” I said. They nodded and went off to get armed and prepared. I checked my magical energy pistol to make sure it was still working, then emptied my saddlebags onto the kitchen table. I grabbed only a few boxes of food, some water, and a small amount of medical supplies.

I went back to the front door, waiting for the others. Kusafiri was already there, his saddlebags on and his sabre stuck in a loop on them. Ginger Beer arrived moments later, also with saddlebags and armed with his pistol.

“Ready?” I asked. They nodded.

“Let's get to it,” I said. The three of us turned, and walked out of the mansion.