Chapter 1: Waking Up
FALLOUT: EQUESTRIA
RAZOR'S EDGE
by Shukin
Chapter 1: Waking Up
I finally examined my surroundings through the sudden bursts of pain that every little movement made me feel. Light fought against the shack's natural darkness through small circled windows, shining against cracked glass that once stood in its frame. Every wall was made of steel, some parts corroded in a brownish color, others already forming moss. I could feel that the whole place was actually humid in my breath, even though I couldn't see anything but dead grass in the distance through the windows, besides mountains at the horizon.
The bed, if you can call it that, that I was on was made of a steel block, melded firmly into the ground, as if it was made before everything happened, before "the end." Through the ceiling, pipes snaked from outside the room to one of the corners, the most distant from my actual position. That's where my caretaker was, and I could recognize the little oven she was in front of as the source for the sweet bread smell. One of the pipes dripped, filling the air with occasional sounds of water against water, as a bucket was put underneath it.
I tried to get up one more time before surrendering my body to my wounds, and just staying put. I tried to speak, but everything that got out of my beak was mangled, so I couldn't form any kind of question, even though I had so many to ask.
"Calm down, griffin, I know you can't speak. It's just a minor side-effect from the medicine Mittens gave you." I wanted to laugh, how could somepony be called Mittens and wanted to be taken seriously? I wanted, though: My ribcage protested as fast as it could against it. "So just stay put and wait, I'm making our lunch."
The first thing I wanted to ask was why she told me that I could call her Sweet Buns, if her name wasn't that. With a quick glance of her frame, I could guess. Somehow, in the middle of all this destruction and famine, she's actually overweight, her figure acquiring forms and curves that made her pretty and, might I say, even sexy. Her cotton candy mane was surely modeled from that pink ministry mare, though it was a softer shade of pink, or at least that's what I could remember from those posters from before the war. In her body, a set of utility barding made clearly from the same scrap metal that the whole place had in bulk, over a red jumpsuit that covered part of her light purple fur. Snuggly in the right places, I might add, as she was facing the wall away from me.
With a tink, the small egg timer on a cupboard besides her declared that ten minutes have passed. She looked at it over her shoulder and, with a whim of magic, she turned the oven's gas knob down, closing its flame's source. I didn't knew she was a unicorn, it was impossible to see her horn through the mane and over her body. Another quick pink flash and the bread, inside its pan, made its way out of the oven and over the metal table in the left corner. The table, at least, was made after the war, as it didn't have the same rust that everything else in the room had.
How much time had passed since I've saw a fresh loaf? Again, my mouth salivated, and my stomach agreed with the whole 'I'm hungry' thing. Raspberry Cake floated a spoon and some kind of metal triangle, approaching the door to the outside as calmly as ever. With three quick notes, she announces "Food is ready!" How many ponies would eat that? It looked like it was enough food for five ponies at max, and let's not forget that I'm not even a pony. Slowly, ponies appeared, some tall, some small. Two foals - twins, by the look of it - sprinted through the metal doorway directly into the bread, the only pony that guaranteed that everypony else would have the opportunity to eat by holding the two was Raspberry. A third appeared, taller than most - probably even taller than me! - with black rubbery boots that extended above his knees. This one had a cutie mark, a staff or wand of some sort.
I thought that would be it, that they were a family of some sort. Sure I was wrong, as three more ponies entered. These looked younger, but already had their cutie marks, the mare had a steel beam, both colts had bolts, one with them ordered in line and made of silver, the other with two bolts crossed and made of copper. Raspberry seemed happy that the shack was full of life, everypony expecting some of the bread for themselves. That wasn't enough at all, how could they survive like that? "Does anypony knows where's Stunner?" She brought a knife to the loaf, intending to cut if after the answer.
The construction trio didn't even pay attention, the foals shuddered and the big one, with a long black mane, said softly, "I presume he is not going to be present this afternoon, m'lady." His tone brought a lot of chivalry to the table, while something in the way he portrayed himself wasn't clicking me right, probably it was the sad excuse of an accent, too pompous to be natural.
"Eh, serves him right. Nopony told him to be such a rag." She finally cut the loaf, the delicious smell flooding the shack once again. From the bed, I couldn't see much more than a bunch of ponies munching into it like if their lifes depended on it and, actually, it did. Raspberry had little trouble to walk through the caos, accustomed with these reunions.
"Here, for the wounded." I thanked her with a nod, and picked up the fluffy slice of fresh loaf with my talons. So warm, and so comforting. I took a small nibble, savoring the sweet taste of peach.
"How are thou holding up, sir?" The tall pony approached, smiling gently. I didn't buy it.
"He's still mangling words, Mittens. It's silly to ask him anything for now." she said, putting the knife used to cut the bread aside.
"Do not worry, sir, it is just a small side-effect of the healing brew. You are quite energetic for somepon- sorry, someone that just got shot." I couldn't care less what pronoun he used, so I just shrugged. Another nibble, I needed to learn that recipe! I think I accidentally showed my satisfaction with the food in an unaware smile, as Raspberry Cake gave a cute laugh at my face.
"Now you know why someponies calls me Sweet Buns, right?" I nodded, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the only reason, as noted before.
"If you are interested, sir, you broke three ribs in your left breast, punctured a lung and had a concussion, besides general cuts and bruises." I swallowed the loaf with gusto, feeling it fill me slowly. After the little description of the resident medic, I felt it even more, pushing my ribs, and coughed. Nice way to remember me how wounded I am, sweet face. I made sure to press my eyes against him. I think he understood that I didn't need to hear that.
"Don't worry, you'll be as good as new! And forgive Mittens, he's more gentle with training dummies than with ponies," she reassured me. Good to know.
I was in a caravan, I think. If I try to dive into any of my memories, my head feels like it's going to explode. Probably it was because of the concussion he said I had. I couldn't do much from a bed, so I just ate and nodded. The trio in the corner talked vigorously about scrap metal, plane pieces and something about constructing a fort inside a cargo plane. The two foals were already running around, wreaking havoc inside the cabin, while nopony paid them attention. My head hurt just trying to keep up with them.
There were, in total, seven ponies inside the small shack for two, no wonder I felt so overwhelmed. Mittens continued "You may have memory problems from the impact. With all due respect, sir, but your plummet was outlandish."
One of the foals stopped, a small teal unicorn, and raised his forelegs in the air. "Yeah dude! It was aaawesome! You were voooooosh through the air and then BAM they hit you and you were like 'woo I'm falling!' and you-"
"Shut up, Filler! Gosh, you're soo irritating!" The mare with the steel beam uttered, breathing heavily after such words. Filler just put his tongue out at her and went back to running. I went back to my piece of loaf, just to see that it was already at the last bite.
"I'm sorry I couldn't give you more, but you see how many ponies I need to feed, right?" Raspberry Cake told me, practically reading my mind. I nodded. I understand, and being another mouth to feed wasn't exactly my style, but I couldn't do anything while hurt.
Slowly, I regained control of my tongue, so I tried some words. "F-Thanksh." It went garbled, but understandable. Good enough for me.
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure you'll make up with us somehow." She smiled openly, and I swallowed the last bite. That smile didn't fit her face, and it made me feel bad, somehow.
I tried again, "S-sorry fer not hulpin'."
She smirked, I stretched my wings. "You're in no condition, there's no need to apologize."
"Dorcter, whart happen wif my carriage?" I was getting better, but still not enough. Mittens had a little bit of trouble to understand it, but soon after he answered.
"Your carriage was shot down with some kind of weapon-fired explosive, sir." I couldn't believe that I was shot down by some raider with a missile launcher. How could I be so stupid to not look around me while flying? "Nothing in the wreckage was recoverable, besides part of your contraptions and belongings." Sensing what I'd ask next, Mittens answered quickly: "Everything is under your bed, contained in a footlocker." I sighed. He approached his head slowly to my chest, waiting for me to give him permission to examine it. I rolled my eyes and put my arm aside.
Gently, he pulled my blanket and touched his ear against my broken ribs, that just now I noticed was covered in bandages and some kind of green gel that very much resembled moss. And just now I noticed that I was naked. Luckily, nobody noticed my slight blushing as I felt my face burn up with the thought that probably both Mittens and Raspberry Cake saw me naked. And probably they've needed to take off my clothes and- Why was I ashamed? It's not like they had anything to look at. They probably don't even know how griffins... work.
"Please, sir, breathe slowly." I calmly obey, breathing in until my lungs couldn't hold anymore and, as controlled as I could, breathed out without coughing. I failed. "Hm... Very nice. Please, now, try to say 'ninety nine'." I do, and he keeps his ear firmly into my chest, trying to hear every variation, every gasp of air. Suddenly he goes back and I quickly cover myself again. "You will be capable of taking off in five days, give or take." He finishes, saluting Raspberry Cake and going through the door, disappearing from my sight.
She approaches me and gives a impish laugh. "Don't care about Mittens and the pole up his ass, he's a good medic but he can't interact with anypony."
I nod. "It's hord to nat notiss."
She gives a heartily laugh and sighs, looking back to the other guests. Looks like everypony has eaten, though not everypony was actually satiated, and I was one of them. "Now go back to your own doings, foals, it's time for our guest to sleep a little more."
The copper-colored mare with the steel beam cutie mark snaps back at her "I'm only two years younger than you, Cake! I'm not a foal!" and storms out of the shack, while both colts that accompanied her laughed and went off behind her. The twins were already away from here when she asked them to leave.
I think she's right. It would be better, for me and for my wounds, if I just went back to sleep and focused all my efforts to get better. "Again... thanks." She just nods, smiling. I just, for some reason, wanted to sleep badly right now, and I just clo se my ey...
-=-=-=-
Through my barely open eyes, I watched two silhouettes floating above me, and steel ruffling my fur, touching bare skin. I couldn't make out what exactly was happening, but I was too drunk on sleeping to care. When the ruffling stopped, I could breathe better. Unconsciously, I stuffed my lungs with air and breathed out slowly, feeling my ribs stretching and retracting as usual. Only then I noticed that I didn't gasped for air, or felt the need to cough. "All nice and dandy, besides these little scars." I heard the sweet voice in my head again, and I felt the urge to smile.
"His fur will cover the scars with time, there is no need to worry about them." And the second voice made me want to puke.
With two strong blinks, I've finally regained limpidity, and saw both Mittens and Raspberry Cake over me, ripping my bandages out with an old pair of scissors. Pink light flooded the place, originating from her horn. "So, am I cured?" I think I startled them, felling the scissors pressing against my mended ribs with a tear escaping from my left eye. "Ouch," I added. Raspberry Cake corrected that in a blink of an eye, whispering that she's sorry under her breath.
"You are free to walk around, mister..."
I got it, it's the opportunity to present myself, mister Holier Than Thou. "Rufus Silvertongue." He nods and continues. "...but you are still not 'cured'." I'm sure he'd make quotation marks if he had talons. "You can not exert yourself, nor can take off yet. Act slowly and you may cure over the days."
"Here, let me help you," Raspberry Cake extended her hoof to help me. I tried my best to get up, using her as leverage. I felt like I still wasn't ready to leave the bed by my own legs, so I stayed sitting, though with my back erected.
"My back is killing me, after all this time without stretching." I extend my wings, purposely hitting Mitten's muzzle with the tip of my feathers. He shakes his head uncomfortable and recovers himself, while I try to hold the laughter. "Well, you said my things were under the bed, right?" He nods, and the footlocker is pulled by Cake's magic. I gave it a tiny kick, and with a click in its locks, it opens itself, revealing the white talon emblem in the small steel brassard. Oh goddess "Gawd is going to kill me!"
I remembered what was inside my wagon and "Oh goddess she's going to kill me so hard! She's going to flip a turned-on auto-axe in my A-"
"Calm down, for Celestia's sake! What's wrong?" Raspberry Cake probably noticed how pale I turned, and tried to stop my freak-out with a good shaking.
Only the pain that shot from my ribs made me stop and speak, "I-I had more than three thousand caps of weapons inside that wagon. They were meant to be delivered directly to her, and I- Goddess, I'm dead."
"No, you're not." She tried to reassure me. I just laughed.
"No no no, you didn't understand. I'm better off dead than to go back to her and tell her I just lost months of caps and survived to tell the story." I kept smiling, though even I couldn't understand if it was for hope or despair.
"But you survived. You survived and you're scared shitless of a mare that's hundreds of miles from here!" She, again, tried to reassure me. Mittens stood perplexed with the whole situation, without knowing what to do and sincerely offended with Raspberry's choice of words. "If you can't go back, you'd be really useful here."
I tried to breathe normally again. "What? I... I don't know. By the look of it, they were preparing for war. They wouldn't be happy to keep waiting for weapons that will never come. I think I need to, don't know, write her a letter or something." I ruffled through the footlocker searching for any piece of paper and a pencil. It was actually easy to find, and with a clipboard to help even more. I clasped the piece of paper to the clipboard and, while writing, I asked. "When's Derpy coming? I need to send this as soon as I can."
"Derpy?" They looked at each other, and sighed. Raspberry Cake put her hoof over the clipboard and, when I looked at her indignantly, she said, "She's not coming anytime soon."
"How's that?" I couldn't understand... There weren't a single settlement that she didn't visited one day of another.
"See, the same raiders that shot you don't like her. And they've made their encampment around us."
"...So you don't have any kind of contact with the outside, is that it?" I seriously found that hard to believe.
"Not exactly... You know, it's a long story. I can tell it after you've taken a good walk through the village, okay?" She put her hoof on my shoulder, and I nodded. Well, it was unnecessary to continue the letter, then.
Throwing the clipboard and the pencil back into the footlocker, I went back to get my things. First of all, I rummaged through my clothes and found what I was looking for with a smile: A small prosthesis made of titanium that I clasped in my left hand, standing in place of my middle talon. After some flexes of my hand, I started wearing the rest of my clothes.
"What's this metal thingie in your hand?" She asked, curiously.
While wearing my white turtleneck, I answered. "It's a sharpener of sorts. I use it as a cutter, to sharpen scrap metal." The next question is always 'why you don't have one talon', so I kept going, "It's my actual tool-of-trade. I'm a weapons dealer, and I manufacture my own blades. You can guess how I've lost a talon from that." That always shut them up, and I always ended up smiling like a bastard. After fastening my barding, I closed the metal brassard in my hindleg. "This is, like, my cutie mark." I pointed to the Talon's emblem. "At least when I'm doing business with them."
"Are you ready, sir Silvertongue?" The most boring pony in the room interrupted. "I will expose our village's structures for your general knowledge." I sighed, and jumped from bed. My legs were in a better shape than I thought, and I ventured taking a step forward. To my surprise, I didn't fall flat in the ground, so that's a start.
"Sure, let's go, shining armor." He didn't know how to react beyond silence, and that's a hell of a plus.
We walked past the door, Mittens first, when I finally had a glimpse of what I was messing with: The whole place was built over an airship bone yard, with pre-war coal cargo ships left and right. Raspberry Cake's shack was inside one of them cut in half, part of it stood correctly - that's the part where her shack was built - and the other part leaned, forming a slope. Her cabin was built touching the old ship's kitchen, as the oven is still from the original construction. The slope wasn't long, as we were approximately 60 feet from the ground, and the tip of the airplane broke against a huge rock that supported it. Both ends of the slope were corrected with scrap metal sheets, making it possible to walk without risk of losing a hoof or, in my case, a paw.
The guy was really taller than me, he couldn't possibly be a normal pony. The way he walked made him look like a lady, and his nose, always high and imposing, made him more effeminate than ever. Still, I was more worried about walking than about my 'guide', so I stood quiet and focused, trying not to fall over and hurt myself more than I already am.
"Following this inclination, you can wander to your left to reach one of the military airplanes discarded in this desolate place, where there is a door for an infirmary. That is my residence." Sure, that was easy to follow.
He turned to the right and signaled me to walk ahead. I nodded and took front of the tour. We walked a little over solid rock before returning to another scrap metal bridge at the other side, where I could see the construction trio working into something, pushing carriages in a hollow. It looked like they were trying to fill it so that they could cross it. To my right, there were another derelict cargo ship with many hydraulic doors in a long corridor.
"Everypony else sleeps inside these dormitories. You will receive your own key later." Again, I nodded. It certainly wasn't the most inviting corridor I've ever saw, but I could see that it was at least secure enough that you didn't need to be careful while sleeping.
He kept walking though, and I had to force my legs to continue. Another slope. I sighed and kept going, the only sound I heard was our own hoofsteps, and the occasional drop of carriage. At the end of this one slope, though, there were a huge turbine used made a makeshift gate, locking everypony inside. To the sides, boxes and containers were aligned to create a staircase to the two watch towers above the gate itself.
I heard a knocking. Then another. The raspiest voice I've ever heard uttered, from the other side of the wall of steel, "Open this shit, you sons of bitches!" I smiled when I saw Mittens' face, terrorized with the vocabulary used.
"Is this that-"
"Stunner. Yyyesss..." He really wasn't comfortable with swearing. Mittens approached the hulking gate and flipped a switch, opening a small hatch through which the ugliest ghoul I've ever seen entered. In his head, two small tufts of what remained of his grayed mane. Part of his jaw was missing, replaced by an antler's. His right eye was covered with a black eyepatch, and a gaping scar went from the center of his forehead to under his right ear, running around his muzzle and missing eye.
"And who the fuck is this fucker?!" He declared, as clean as a feral ghoul's mouth and, well, he is a ghoul.
"He's a visitor and a patient." Mittens tried to defend me, something I didn't expect. Stunner approached me, his working eye examining every bit of my appearance. He was so close that I could smell the weak cologne in his body and the scotch in his breath, no wonder that was his name. I shuddered with the strong clash of smells, and sneezed.
"He's a fucking fruity bird, get him the fuck out of here. I've got some pretty bad news for her," he groaned, walking towards Raspberry's shack.
"What bit him?" I asked, and was answered with a quick laugh, something that I didn't expect from somepony as 'educated' as Mittens.
"That is the way Stunner chose to interact with everypony else. This is something that, according to him, dates back from before the war." So he was alive when all hell broke loose. "Anyway, there is nothing that could be added continuing this tour." I nodded and thanked him without a drop of sincerity before starting the way back to Raspberry's house. If that's the way he went, that's where I'll go.
Level: 1
S: 5 | P: 4 | E: 7 | C: 9 | I: 6 | A: 5 | L: 4
Tags: Barter, Melee Weapons, Repair
Skills:
Barter: 37 Energy Weapons: 12 Explosives: 12 Guns: 14 Lockpick: 12 Medicine: 16
Melee Weapons: 29 Repair: 31 Science: 16 Sneak: 14 Speech: 22 Survival: 18 Unarmed: 18
Perks:
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Welcome to the Fo:E heard!
Don´t forget to take a look on the Fo:E G-doc
Hum Fallout Equestria with a griffin as the main character. Color me interested. This will go to my read list.
1932639
Thanks. I'll take a look at it.
1932655
These are kind of rare, compared with the sidestories I've read, as well as a character without a PipBuck. I guess it's a good differential.
1932656
Thanks, I drew the cover myself, though there are too many mistakes and it is, overall, pretty bad.
I hope all of you like what you read here.
Intresting story, ima fav dis. There is a few flaws, but they are mostly mispelt words, great job at writting English! I'll give you 20 bro points, use them well!
hmm, a new FO:E fic, and from the perspective of a griffin, looks to be interesting...
you want a critique? I'll give you a critique, here are my points in decreasing order of importance:
first off: line breaks, right now the story looks like/is a massive wall-of-text, and is therefore somewhat hard to read (I had to make a conscious effort to maintain my place, but that's just me, I generally can't read huge unbroken up pieces of text), the solution: add an extra line between every paragraph, it'll improve the readability of the story by a lot
second: whenever someone different speaks, that's a new paragraph, this helps the reader keep track of who's speaking as it becomes quite difficult inside of massive paragraphs, it also helps to alleviate the wall-of-text feel, because you're breaking the story down into smaller chunks
(here's an, in my opinion, easy to understand guide to Dialogue Rules, because I'm terrible at lengthy explanations)
third: grammar, spelling, and word choice, there's not too many errors, you did a pretty good job actually (I've definitely seen worse, mainly from native english speakers), unfortunately due to the wall-of-text-ieness, nitpicking every line is much harder so I'll probably miss a lot:
in order starting from the beginning of the prologue:
period goes inside of the quotes
I'm pretty sure there are general dialogue punctuation errors for every bit of spoken dialogue, so I'm not going to list all of them, suffice to say, if you're following the dialogue rules from that link I provided you, all these errors should easily be fixable
generally griffin is the accepted english spelling of griffon (though both spellings work), and is the accepted spelling in this fandom (despite the episode title "Griffon the brush off")
chapter one:
odd choice of words, I didn't even know 'shocks' was a synonym for 'sounds', it's not how I would word it, but it is your story
is it just me? or did you forget to describe the, what I assume to be, piece of cake? again, not how I word word/tell it
personally, I would correct this to 'showed'.
one extra space between 'worry,' and 'you'll'
I think you mean 'click'
I think you mean 'mare'
um, how would Rufus know the ship is a cruiser? unless he studies old-world ships or has had some kind of formal education (which I doubt). Just a single phrase like 'I recalled a bit of knowledge I'd picked up', or something similar would work
personally, I would replace 'that' with 'through which', 'saw' with 'seen', and 'crossed' with 'entered'
personally I would reword this to say: "all hell broke loose"
and finally, you forgot the 'h' in 'where'
and that concludes my critique on the raw text of this story, as for the story itself, it's pretty good, characters seem fleshed out/unique enough, plot's also fine, can't wait to see where you go with it. Just wondering, did you ever mention Cherry Cake's coat color? because you described everything else about her, just as a piece of advice, whenever introducing/describing a pony, try to include the sub-species (unicorn, pegasus, earth pony), unless it's not obvious, and their coat color as it's their most striking/recognizable feature usually (just how skin color/ethnicity is usually the most apparent feature on a human)
also that's a pretty good cover image, considering you made it yourself
and finally, ignore any random down votes/hateful comments, there are a couple of trolls/haters who down vote and/or flame every FO:E fic on this site
1935396 Wow, thanks! It's nice to see so many tips. I tried to correct everything you said, mainly the wall-of-text feeling and the dialogue.
I'm more used to writing descriptions than I'm with dialogue, as I'm used to use colors to describe who's talking. I'll try to follow those dialogue rules every time I write from now on, thanks for the link.
You've helped me a lot with this. Keep up the good work!
1936261 Glad I could help, the story much more readable now
"Dis plane is our plane now :U"