Unshaken

by The 24th Pegasus

Chapter 140

Disagree with Tumbleweed: 8 Votes

“Livin’ with ourselves when all this is done and over means somethin’,” Kestrel said. “Maybe it ain’t meanin’ so much to you no more, but I at least wanna get outta here with my dignity intact.”

“Only fools think dyin’ for somethin’s better than livin’ for somethin’,” Tumbleweed said with a frown and a shake of his head. “I’m livin’ for the Gang, not dyin’ for ‘em. I can’t do much to protect my family when I’m dead and gone, Kessie. And no matter what you think of yourself, the world’s only ever gonna see one thing when they read the name on your grave. They’re only gonna see a crook, a criminal, somepony who bucked the system and killed and stole her way ‘cross Equestria. Same as any of us.”

“I ain’t gonna care nothin’ what the world thinks of me when I’m gone. I’ll be dead. But at least when I go, I wanna go out knowin’ that I was true to myself and my heart. I ain’t gonna want to go out with regrets, wonderin’ if I coulda been a better mare.” Kestrel closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, her shoulders and wings rising some before she let it out. “The world set me on this life. My mama was a bitch and my dad a useless gambler. My brother died ‘cause nopony thought an urchin was worth carin’ for. I did the only thing I could do to survive. But never was I a bad mare, a murderer, a monster. And I ain’t gonna let the world break me down just to cling to its misery a little longer.”

She turned around with an annoyed flick of her tail and spread her wings. “I’ll go on ahead and let everypony know what’s the plan. See you back at camp.” Then she took off without waiting for a response.

It didn’t take her long to get above the trees and leave Tumbleweed behind, though once she did, she growled at herself and shook her head. She knew she shouldn’t have left the Gang’s leader behind in the bayou, but she needed to get some space from the stallion where she could be alone with her thoughts. There were many things she needed to think about, and she wanted the space to sort them out herself.

Her first thoughts settled not on the most pressing concern, but the one that worried her the most. She felt it had been no secret to anypony who took the time to look around their camp that the Gang was beginning to fray. The deaths of Wanderer and Trixie had shaken the Gang to its core, shattered any illusions of invincibility the survivors may have had in their heads, and reminded them that they were all only one mistake away from death. Tumbleweed’s concerns he shared with her both to and from the moonshiners’ hideaway made that much painfully clear. Suspicion was setting in among the group members, or at the very least, between Tumblewee and the ponies he had to care for. Kestrel wanted to write it all off as just the stress of the situation getting to the group’s leader, and she was certain that it was, but the very idea that Tumbleweed felt the need to second-guess his family worried her. If they couldn’t trust each other, couldn’t look out for each other, how could they hope to get out of New Oatleans alive?

And that left Kestrel in the terrible situation of asking herself a simple question with far too much weight attached to it: what was she going to do about it? She was the Gang’s number two, after all, and after Tumbleweed, ponies looked up to her to make the right decisions to lead them to safety. And over the past few weeks, she’d made plenty of decisions, ones that benefitted the Gang at large, and those that had set them back far more than she cared to admit. If the Gang was beginning to fray, then she needed to do what she could to keep it together. But sharing Tumbleweed’s concerns with the group, or even with one or two ponies, could have the opposite effect, only amplifying mistrust between the Gang members and setting them down the road to ruin.

She needed to have a talk with somepony she trusted. Just as Tumbleweed confided in her, Kestrel needed to confide in somepony else. And out of everypony in the Gang, out of everypony she’d spent her life traveling with, there was really only one mare that Kestrel felt she could trust with anything.

Flapping her wings a few times to cancel out the pull of gravity right before her hooves touched the ground, Kestrel alighted back in the camp a few minutes later. She figured she probably had at least half an hour before Tumbleweed managed to make his way back on hoof; plenty of time to have a private conversation with Silvie and air her concerns before once again picking up the mantle of the Gang’s loyal number two. So instead of making her way to the large building the Gang had been using as its communal space, Kestrel went straight to the hut Silver had chosen when they moved in, hoping to find the mare inside recovering from her cold.

Luckily enough, when she knocked on the door and stuck her head inside, she found the silver pegasus sitting against the wall, her blanket thrown over her shoulders and wings to keep her warm. “Kessie?” Silver asked, her voice somewhat stuffy from the congestion plaguing her sinuses. “You’re back! How’d it go?”

“Good enough,” Kestrel said, stepping inside and shutting the door behind her. “The shiners claim they know somethin’, so that’s the good news. Bad news is they want us to go and do somethin’ for ‘em first ‘fore they tell us. It ain’t gonna be easy, and Tumbleweed ain’t even sure that they know somethin’ or if they’re just tryin’ to use us. But it’s a chance we gotta take, I think.”

Silver looked down the length of her muzzle and frowned, lips pursed in thought. “How many more chances you think we got left in us, Kessie?” the young mare asked her. “How many you think we can take ‘fore we’re outta ‘em?”

The question made Kestrel pause, and after trying for a moment, she realized she didn’t have an answer to it. “I dunno,” she admitted. “All I know is time’s runnin’ out and we ain’t got better options. It’s what we gotta do if we’re gonna get outta this alive. But I just…” She hesitated, the words on the tip of her tongue, but she was unable to shake them free.

Silver noticed, and she blinked. “Kessie?” the pegasus asked. “Somethin’ wrong?”

After a moment, Kestrel walked across the hut and sat down next to Silver, her wings sagging and feathers brushing against the floorboards. “I’m worried ‘bout us. Worried that the glue in the Gang ain’t as tight as it used to be. And I’m worried that it’s gonna come undone and we’re all gonna be killed.” She looked away, unable to bring herself to make eye contact with Silver as she admitted the fears that could make her worst nightmares come true. “Tumblweed’s on edge, and I’m worried it’s gonna make him do somethin’ stupid. He wanted to take the Gang and go beat what the shiners know outta ‘em instead of helpin’ ‘em out with their problems. I don’t know if I coulda done that, goin’ back on our word like that. But he’s gettin’ mighty convinced that we’re gonna have to take drastic measures to get outta New Oatleans alive.”

Silver leaned in a little closer. “What’re you sayin’ then, Kessie?”

“What I’m sayin’ is that I don’t know what I’m sayin’.” Kestrel sighed and buried her face in her feathers. “What I’m sayin’ is that… I dunno. If somethin’ happens in the Gang, I wanna make sure that I got friends. I got ponies with me. I need ponies I can count on. I ain’t lookin’ to be the only voice of reason if somethin’ gets outta hoof. I need to know if you’re with me, Silvie, ‘cause I feel like you’re the only pony I can really trust anymore.”

The admission took Silver by surprise, but after a moment, she swallowed hard and nodded her head. “I’m always with you, Kessie,” the younger pegasus said. “I know you’re always gonna do the right thing.”

“Good,” Kestrel said, lowering her wing. “Thanks,” she added a second later, and she let out a tired breath.

“It’s nothin’,” Silver said, stifling a cough with her own wing. “Just… We gotta stop things from getting’ worse, Kessie. I don’t want to be drawin’ sides. I just wanna get outta here as a family. Not as survivors.”

“Me too, Silvie,” Kestrel said. “Me too.”

[NO POLL FOR THIS CHAPTER]

Author's Note:

This story is a CYOA comment-driven story, where you, the readers, decide the outcome of the story. Each poll contains several options, each with sub-optimal choices thrown into the mix, with nothing but the prose to clue the readers into what each option entails. The will of the masses, alongside a few unbiased dice rolls, will decide the outcome of the story.

You can find Kestrel's character sheet, along with some key information about her and the Gang, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xAGDlcd5mlMTAHwexlsrXOffQMMLoQc12u9itAa-io0/edit?usp=sharing

If you want to see the dice rolls in action, check out my Discord server: https://discord.gg/RsVkdDP

Comments

[RoboRed]

<insert sounds of threads slowly snapping here>

[Six String]

Great chapter.

*Boop*

[Gearsmash King]

I was almost expecting, "When the time comes, you gotta run and don't look back. This is over..."

[djthomp]

Kestrel reaching out to members of the gang to get them on her side is definitely not going to help de-escalate the situation, but that may not be possible anymore.