//------------------------------//
// 20 
// Story: Wayward Courier 
// by Speven Dillberg 
//------------------------------//

	“Basically, it tells me where I am, the most direct way to somewhere else, how injured I am, where those injuries are and what time it is.”
The Courier had just finished an incredibly long-winded explanation on the capabilities of the Pip-Boy. Or rather, he had tried to. A lot of the technical language was too much for the poor guard, in the same way that a lot of the talk of the arcane was a complete mystery to him. He found himself simplifying it enough for a child. When that wasn’t enough, he went for tribal. That turned out to be too far, and he had to apologise for accidentally insulting him.
“So, it’s a map, a medical device and a clock?” Defib asked.
“There’s so much more to it, but that’s enough to get a good idea.” Mentally, the Courier began to berate himself for using such technical language. I need to stop hanging around the Followers.
“Wouldn’t such a device make one complacent?” Luna asked. “If you have no need to worry about where your enemies are, or to even properly concentrate on attacking, how can you rightly claim to be such a proficient warrior?”
He shrugged in lieu of an actual answer. “An edge is an edge. I’ll take all the help I can get. And don’t all your guards have armour that heals them?” he asked
The princess acted as though he never said that last part. “If all the places you have travelled to in the past are anything like the Sierra Madre you told me about, I can understand that,” Luna said quietly.
“Sierra what-now?” Defib asked, not having the slightest clue what was going on.
“A city of the dead,” the Courier answered. He turned back to Luna. “And no, not all the places were like the Sierra Madre. Some were worse.”





And then I told them about the Divide. About what Ulysses nearly did, about the Marked Men, about - what? I haven’t told you that one yet? Fuck, now I feel stupid. Okay, I’ll tell you that one later.






“This ‘Divide’ is nothing more than a blasted ruin?”
“No, it was Hell on Earth,” the Courier clarified. “A Hell home to cannibalistic mutants and weapons that could level entire cities. And don’t get me started on the Deathclaws.”
“I cannot imagine what that was like,” Luna muttered, trying her best to conjure up the images of a canyon made of fallen buildings and wrecked vehicles, the entire scene constantly battered by skin-flaying dust-storms. 
“What probably makes it worse is that not even five years ago there was a thriving village in there. Then one day half the nuclear missiles went off and tore the place apart. All because of some little bit of Pre-War tech,” he finished bitterly.
“Weapons that harness pure, unfocused magic...” Defib said uneasily. “I can’t even imagine what kind of sick mind devised such a thing.”
“Thomas, your explanation...” Luna said. “It seems lacking. Is there something you’re not telling us?”
There was a very uneasy silence. “I... well...” For the first time, there was something approaching genuine, heartfelt regret. “I didn’t know. It was just a job. ‘Take this package to the Divide,’ that was all they told me. How was I meant to know that would happen? How was I meant to know I was bringing their doom?”
“You killed them all,” Luna whispered as Defib stared at him in disgust.
“I didn’t know!” the Courier cried, tears running down his face. “I had repressed those memories! But the day I went back, I remembered everything! What it had been like, humanity’s best chance to begin again! And I completely destroyed it! Do you... do you know what it’s like?” he asked tearfully. “What it’s like to see something completely and utterly destroyed, no hope of undoing the damage, knowing that you’re responsible? Especially when you didn’t mean to do anything? And then having to live as though it never happened!?” He put his face into his hands and cried into them.
Luna looked at the sobbing man and turned to the guard. “Give us a moment,” she ordered. Defib complied, but not before giving the man a strange look. “Courier,” Luna said, turning back to him, “I do.”
“You do what?” he asked back, refusing to look up from his lap.
“I know what it’s like to see the site of devastation knowing that, indirectly, I was responsible.” She stepped closer. “A thousand years ago, control of my body was taken from me. I could only watch as ‘Nightmare Moon’ committed atrocity after atrocity. Entire towns were destroyed, mountains turned to dust.” The Courier, his eyes red, pulled his hands away from his face and turned to look at her. He was shocked to see that she was close to tears. “I was labelled a monster, a menace. My sister and the thing controlling my body fought for what must have been days. Eventually, my sister succeeded in banishing my body to the moon. She had thought me dead, Courier,” the alicorn said, tearing up. “She had thought that the thing controlling my actions had destroyed my soul and replaced me with it.”
“Why... why are you telling me this?” he asked.
“Not long before you arrived,” she continued, “I visited the site of our last battle. The foul, horrible magics I had used there, it would be accurate to say that they far surpassed anything these ‘nuclear weapons’ are capable of.” She looked at him, her tears flowing like a river. “It had once been a city, Courier. The largest, grandest city of its time. And there was nothing! A-absolutely nothing left! It was as though it never existed!” With those last words the alicorn collapsed to her knees, weeping unashamedly. 
To Thomas, there was only one thing to do here. He slowly got up and walked to her. When he was close enough, he reached out with both arms and tried to grab Luna around the neck in a hug. Only his Pip-Boy began ticking so fast the ticks ran together to create a horrible grinding noise. He pulled away in an instant. “Err... Is there a way you could...?”
“One... one moment.” Luna sniffed before her horn shone. Her mane and tail, the twin voids of night and stars, became limp and turned a delicate shade of blue. There were still traces of the stars, a slight shimmering that could only be seen at the right angle. “It... It should be okay now.”
The Courier tentatively wrapped his arms around her. When he didn’t collapse from an instantly-lethal dose of radiation, he tightened his grip and snuggled into her mane. Luna rose up slightly and brought one of her forelegs around him, pulling him closer.
“T-thank you,” Luna said. “Thank you for listening.”






Author’s Notes:
Aww, isn’t that sweet?
Seriously, how well would you cope in their shoes?