A good idiot
The neighborhood was dark and still when he arrived back at the little walk-up apartment, made his way up the stairs, fumbled in the dark for his keys, went in, and crept as quietly as he could toward their bedroom in the back. His wife would have gone to sleep long ago.
He pushed open the bedroom door and saw his wife standing on the other side, glaring back at him in the dark. She snapped on the lights, thrust her head at him, and marched forward, forcing him to back up through their small sitting room until all but his head was pulled back into the hallway. There she stood with her legs splayed in a broad stance as if she were defending the apartment from him. "Where have you been?" she brayed. "What did you need to do that could not be done under the sun?"
He felt so heavy that just standing up took effort. "Can we please go to bed?"
"Go to bed? Go to BED?" she squealed. "Have you been drinking?" She nipped his chest sharply, then sniffed his breath, and then his mane.
Her ears drooped. "You've been with another mare," she said, unbelieving.
"Yes," he said dully. "I was with another mare, and I spent all our money on her."
He saw the familiar look of concentration on her face that meant she was trying to puzzle out something confusing, as if possibly he had said something entirely different and she had misheard him. He wondered why he had just used the truth to tell such a cruel lie, and why he had pretended to himself that his wife could fall asleep before he had returned. He almost had the answer in his grasp when she slapped him.
"You thought you could come back here in the middle of the night, stinking of one of those legion whores, and get away with it?" She thrust her nose against him, pushing his head back. "You think I'm STUPID, Amadi?"
He didn't look away, or give ground. He just gazed back at her with fondness and sorrow.
She snorted furiously. Then she wheeled around and kicked with her rear legs, smashing into fragments the pot of an ostrich fern that stood against the sitting-room wall just inches to his right. He was too tired to flinch.
She trod in a half-circle to face him again, breathing heavily. Then her shoulders slumped, and she sat heavily on the floor, blinking. "Twenty years, Amadi. Twenty years. You only had to go one more week. Couldn't you have had the decency to wait until you shipped out, like all the other soldiers?"
It would be better for her to think that he no longer loved her. That, he realized, was why he had misled her. Amadi knew in his gut that he would never come back from the war. Every day the news reported new victories; but if it were true, they would never have called up an old stallion like himself. He had seen the truth in the eyes of the doctors at the enlistment center, as they pretended he was in perfect health. It would be better for her to find another stallion now, while there were still some left.
But she looked so sad. He wanted to lick the tears from her cheek the way mothers did to their foals. He would probably get a swift kick if he tried.
"I had to," he said. A shy, sad smile crept onto his face, as though he had given her a present she did not like.
Realization slowly dawned on her. "You did it," she said. "You stupid zebra, you went ahead and did it."
"Yes."
Now she really cried, and she reared up and beat his chest with her hooves. Just the flats, but hard enough to hurt. "You IDIOT! What if they'd caught you?"
"I know."
"You didn't even TELL me! I wouldn't even know what had happened to you! You thoughtless little colt!"
"I know."
She stopped hitting him and sighed. "All our money, Amadi. You said we were going to leave this horrible place, buy a house with a yard and plant cherry trees."
"If you'd been there. If you'd been there. You'd have sold the silver, the books, the furniture, just to buy her one more minute."
"What about ME? What about me, here, alone while you are off at the war? What will I do?"
He could have told her that she would get all of his legion pay, or that the money had been barely enough to buy the cherry trees let alone a house, or that planning for the future now was a cruel joke. All these things were true. Instead, he said, "She was the same age Zuwena would have been."
They stood facing each other for a full minute, breathing heavily.
"You're a good zebra," she finally said, and kissed him lightly on the lips. Then she swatted his chest again, hard. "But an idiot. Now shut up and come to bed."
They pulled back the covers and crawled into bed. She snuggled up against him and put one foreleg over his neck. "Maybe you'll finally be able to get some sleep," she said.
"Maybe."
Over her shoulder, he could see the clock on the nightstand. Nearly two o'clock. The cashier's schedule had had timeslots up through three in the morning.
As she gradually relaxed and dozed off, he felt the beat of her heart and listened to her breathing, regular and unhurried as the ticking of a clock or the waves lapping on the shore of some vast, imperturbable sea, and he could almost imagine that he could hold her like that and keep her safe, forever.
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976663
That's all there is. You know how sometimes a little story grows into a big story? This is the remains of a big story. I had an alternate-history Fallout: Equestria story in my head, but eventually I realized that I didn't have the stomach to write it.
As for this story, turning it into an adventure with a daring rescue would ruin it. It's about somepony who's powerless in the face of injustice, and does the little bit that he can anyway.
Notice that Amadi and the guards all want to treat the pegasus better, but they're all afraid of each other.
Fucking Hell. OUCH.
This was condensed, weaponized sadness.
Have a Fave.
I liked it.
D:
Sweet merciful...
Bleak. No other word for it. Pain, made into words.
Have my thumbs. All of them.
I'm going to go and drink alcohol. I may never stop.
... Did I just read an FO:E fic?
Very nice.
Hmm. I thought he was going to slit her throat. To end this quick, painless and fast. I am disappoint.
But that's a damn good fic.
1021379
Yes. Yes you did.
1021379
Now you are one of us. Your life will never be the same.
Very nice. I had enjoyed it. Tugged at the strings a bit -- not as much as it could have -- but I liked it.
A word of note, though: When you write the title of anything -- be it a chapter or a story -- you capitalize any words greater than three letters, with exception to the starting word, or important words.
Wow. That was... so sad
This story made me mad. Very well done. Thumbs up.
You, sir, have made me a sad panda. I like it regardless.
Someone told me that Equestria was their happy place. Do you get hate mail for writing this stuff?
It's awful and horrible and bleak and beautiful, all at the same time.
J.
1445391
You clearly haven't read Fallout: Equestria.
1445391 Haven't gotten any yet. I'll know I'm popular when I do.
Wow.
Just.
Wow.
That was a great story, it wasn't at all like I would have expected from a Fallout Equestria fic and it's all the greater for it. It was so simple yet so amazing. Heartbreaking and uplifting at once. I look forward to reading anything else you may have written.
Just read this story today on my quest to consume all your pony words and gave it a thumb before thinking too deeply on it and moved on. I'm embarrassed to admit that your works require me to do a bit too much digging to get to the good nuggets.
The reason I'm leaving comment, though, was that I also read the new chapter of Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons and took very special note that a new war-era character that was introduced was a zebra named Amadi. Is this a rather unusual coincidence? Your story didn't seem to imply that he was anything out of the ordinary, but it's quite possible that enough time passed between the events of this story and PH that they could be the same character.
Anyway, I thought you might be able to clear this up. Somber has a way of cleverly sneaking in references to other Fallout side stories, but then again perhaps Amadi is a common pick for a zebra name. Or coincidence.
1987496 I chose the names in my story from a list of African names. They were all from the same region of Africa, but now I've forgotten what part. (Hopefully one that has zebras.) I don't know how to contact Somber, so I can't ask. Until I hear otherwise, I'm going to pretend that it's a reference to my Amadi!
Thanks for pointing that out!
I don't know whether to thank you for this beautiful story or yell at you for breaking my heart. I think instead I shall simply say thank you and leave the tears where they fall.
I am not even going to try and explain how beautiful and sad and wonderful and horrible this story is... all at the same time.
It's just perfect.
For being the most beautiful, sad and most fitting story to describe Fo:E in shortest words does I hereby grant this story my stamp of approval
th04.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2013/056/8/a/commission__brony_seal_of_approval_by_shrineart-d5w6301.png
Loved it. Strange thing, but it always seems that the better FO:E sidestories out of the ones I've read have been the ones that are also the most condensed. Ironic, really, given their parentage.
I'd say the cutting back and forth between the interior of the room and the guards outside weakens this one.
The room is the pegasus' entire world, and by reminding the reader of the outside you cut down on the claustrophobia, despair and caged nature that could lead to empathy.
I mean, I get why you did it and the point you were trying to make about how everyone is scared of someone else, but I think the point displaced the story. The suffering was less powerful than it could have been.
That said, the bit at the end about him looking at the clock was very simple and effective. The futility of it all.
2602805 You think it would work to simply strip out those cuts to the outside? They're also there for pacing, to give a sense of time passing even though during that time the protagonist isn't doing anything. I didn't know how to stay in the room and show time passing while nothing happens without boring the reader.
2614367
I can see how you couldn't simply cut the sections out, but maybe put in more description of him trying to coax her like she were a wounded animal with the apple, or more description of the physical (her body being malnourished and mangy) when it comes to her scream.
2614367
I think the cuts work well. They introduce a dose of irony that adds nicely to the story.
3612348
Au contraire.
Or perhaps I should say, there are only very, very bad governments.
For, what could be worse than pure, violent force for the purpose of controlling the many for the benefit of the few? Is freedom only better than slavery if the slavery is very, very bad? Slavery is always very, very bad.
"That government is best which governs least"
That government which governs least is no government.
Which is worse, power concentrated under the the few and the evil, or spread out evenly? When a force monopoly is given to the few, they may overwhelm the good. When you grant them no such advantage, there are more good men than evil, and the latter may be easily corrected, as Jeff Cooper said, by good men with rifles. For a good example, see April 19th, 1775.
Meh. I think this chapter was unnecessary in a story set entirely in the denouement.
Overall, good snapshot.
3885048 I'm keeping that out of my FoE canon, regardless of kkat writing a chapter for PNH. Kkat likes PNH; that doesn't mean it matches up with her head-canon, and I think that story for the origin of the war is very, very damaging to FoE.
One of the key points of FoE--one of the things that makes it interesting--is that the characters spend half the book trying to learn how the war started, and whose fault it is. They discover that it isn't anybody's fault. And Fallout:Equestria explicitly denies the coal story; everything centers on the battle at the school for unicorns, where it's made clear that neither side made one obvious triggering move, like stealing coal. Everything went wrong through a combination of misunderstandings and stupidity.
That's a central theme of Fallout:Equestria. Bad things aren't always the result of bad people. The reason it combines ponies and Fallout, the central question it poses, is, "How could creatures as nice as ponies be reduced to wasteland raiders?"
3613082 I sense you are a an anarchist-libertarian, no?
3888855
Gosh, how did you ever guess?
3889287 just a hunch.
3889312
Any views on the subject?
3889317 I myself am a heterosexual feminist pro-choice pro-LGBTQ hippie Christian pacifistic capitalistic socialist. I also spent most of my pre-college life living as a bat pony in Ponyville. I'm sure there's something there to discuss.
3889352 No doubt. =P
I thought I was a mouthful at Individualist-anarcho-capitalist-libertarian.
3889426 are you part of the group Political Ponies?
3889426 3889515 I'm thrilled to have brought you two dangerous subversives together. It's my evil deed for the day. Could you take this conversation to private message?
3889534 oops.
sorry. Yes of course. I'm guessing continuing a conversation here after you've asked us to stop is far too petty to get me into your evil league, huh? 
3889547 It might get you in, but you'd be the guy who has to make coffee and get sandwiches.
3889534
3889547
Hah! We shall respect your private domain, and remove ourselves as per your rightful request. How's that for subversion of evil?
Man, this is bleak, but I liked it. This was one of the last three stories you'd written that I hadn't read. Apparently I skipped it for no good reason.
I think Chapter 2 could have been rolled up into Chapter 1 and made the whole thing flow more smoothly, but overall I liked this short snapshot. The mood is suitably bleak for the given times and clash between morals is always an enjoyable thing to watch unfold. A close friend and I have had discussions, and still do, that have lasted over a year on why there was such a sharp and sudden decline in the principles and ethics of both ponies and zebras. We've yet to come to any conclusions that don't require an outside force and the fact that there are zebras in this story, just one year into the war, that view their actions as an accepted requirement further highlights the conundrum of our conversations. It's not touched upon, but do you, or anyone in the comments, have a theory of your own on why everything took such a downturn that made this kind of world possible?
I think that's the main question of Fallout: Equestria, and the best answer I can give is, "Read Fallout: Equestria again."
Sorry!
There's not much I can say, but this is an excellent little one-shot. It's powerful, that much I can say.
Short, but you did a lot with it. It was wonderfully tragic and seemed like a good fit for the FO:E universe. It was way more bleak than the original, which did have an overtone of hope in the darkest of times, but I feel it was still in keeping with its spirit by virtue of its protagonist and premise, that even in the midst of this madness there are good people trying to do right. So I like it.
Also, my congratulations for writing the first new FO:E sidestory to get on Equestria Daily since Heroes. I tell ya, I wasn't expecting that on the day I first saw it and added it to my list.
This is a really good short story. It's not as mysterious or provocative or philosophical as some of your other stories, but its simplicity is its strength. It's just descriptive enough, just informative enough. Reading it feels brief, but complete; you know exactly what happened but the emotions you got from it were vivid enough that you keep thinking about it afterwards, because you feel there's more to it than just what you read. I don't often reread stories but this was worth a second pass just because of how well it's crafted. I don't think the second chapter was necessary, but I suppose it didn't hurt either.
Using FoE to explore big ideas: you're doing it right.
Well, except for not blatantly slapping that story's title in this one. :V