FoE:SCoM Update

So as you all have possibly noticed, the last chapter hasn't come out yet. The story is not cancelled (and never will be, I've spent too much time on this to back out now), I've simply taken a slight hiatus from writing. I've been dealing with a lot of stress at work and my new schedule doesn't allow for a proper sleep cycle (I've had raccoon eyes for at least the past few months straight) so suffice to say I haven't had a lot of time to write.

But I think my hiatus will be ending soon, so look forwards to the next chapter, which is so lovingly titled "In a world of life and death," soon.

In the meantime, have a snippet!

Moving around to the back of the wagon, I gave my hooves a break and poked my head in through the back tarp of the medical wagon...and immediately came face to face with a small pistol clutched in a magical grip. I froze on the spot, staring down the sights at Leather Strap’s pink eyes.

“This is why we announce ourselves when coming in,” Strap said, tucking the weapon away.

“Sorry,” I apologized, pushing in and landing. The wagon made my nose winkle, the cloying scents of waste, blood, and infection creating a concoction of unsanitary horror for the senses to enjoy.

“Sorry might not always cut it, Skies. This is the wasteland,” Leather Strap said, igniting her horn and checking over another pony, “Not your happy-go-lucky world above the clouds.”

“You know it isn’t so happy-go-lucky as you seem to think!” I growled, “For one: the food sucks compared to down here—”

“Oh, so it’s even more radioactive and hard to come by?” Strap cut in, giving me a backwards glance with one eye, “Is your average pony worried about starving to death if they don’t eat from a glowing can of beans?”

“Well...but...ugh! Okay, maybe not, but you have to have a birth card to have a foal and—”

“Do you get to choose who impregnates you?” Strap snapped back at me, turning awkwardly in the cramped space, wincing as she put pressure on her wounded leg, “Or can any sick bastard with a bigger gun than you tell you to lift tail and spread cheeks?”

“I...you’re not listening—” I growled, stomping a hoof.

“You don’t have anything of value to say, Skies, you lack the perspective!” Strap countered with a scowl, “From the perspective of the wasteland, you’ve lucked out so far. You got in with a decent group with decent food for a decent price. You’ve only been down here for a week and the worst that’s happened is a few bruises and maybe a wounded psyche,” she cast her eyes to my belly, “but, how much longer do you need before you can pop that foal out? How much longer is your luck going to last?

“Those raiders that are chasing us? If they catch you, regardless of whether or not they kill you first, they will without a doubt rape you,” I tried to get a word in, but she didn’t stop to let me, “They won’t stop if you tell them you’re pregnant, they’ll laugh and grab a rusty, old coat hanger. They won’t care if you scream, they might even enjoy it more. When they’re done, you’ll be lucky to get a bullet in the brain, but if your luck ran out? They’ll drag you back to their den for seconds, thirds, and fourths. Your only chance at salvation is if one of them knocks you up and decides he wants a foal of his own. Then maybe, just maybe, they’ll let you off the rape hook until you pop out the foal, but then it’s back into the frying pan.

“I wasn’t alone when I got capture by raiders, I wasn’t the only one they decided to keep around, but I was the only one that survived. That shit?” She continued, staring straight into my eyes, “That shit changes a pony, Skies. And from what I’ve seen, you can’t handle change. You wouldn’t survive...” She turned away, staring at the floor for a moment, “You won’t survive.”

I didn’t quite know what to say to...all that. She’d shot down my argument at every turn, and thrown in some terrifying, tail-tucking mental images to boot. Again I saw the raiders and again I tried not to think what would’ve happened if Mist had been overwhelmed...yet her final comment almost seemed to drive the longest nail into the coffin.

“I...you...you don’t think we’ll make it?” I said, stomach icing over as I threw a quick glance towards the rear of the wagon.

“I don’t know, it’s too close to tell and I honestly don’t know. If those raiders find us out here…” Strap gestured to all the wounded, “pretty much everyone in this wagon is guarenteed to die. The only question is how slowly. If you use that mass of gray matter between your ears and fly away, you’re the most likely to survive. The rest? Maybe if they’ve got another good run in them then they’ll survive; but they’re all running tired, at best they’ll put up a good fight and eat their guns before they’re overrun.

“I’m only thirty-four. I’m not old for a pony, but I am for a wastelander,” Strap continued, sounding tired now more than anything else, “I’ve faced bad odds before, and I’ve beaten bad odds before...but I’ve also lost to them. This is definitely one of those bad odds times, and Dual Gauge only made it worse by keeping us wounded along with him.”

“It was the right thing to do!” I asserted.

“And sometimes doing the right thing gets you killed, Skies,” Strap sighed, “The wasteland isn’t a world of right and wrong, it’s a world of life and death.”

“Look, I just came here to get the number of wounded and their jobs, Dual Gauge wanted a head count,” I changed the subject, looking around the cramped wagon, “Is Kiddo around? I didn’t see her out there.”

Strap shrugged as she turned back to the wounded, “I dunno, haven’t seen her since yesterday. She probably went with another group. If not then hell, maybe she up and joined our raider pals and their pet ghouls!”

“How can you say that?” I took a short step back. Kiddo was her, well kid, her foal, her offspring, yet my own belly gave me a pinch and again I saw the raider’s leering eyes on me. Would I ever be able to love a pony born of rape? Whatever the case, Leather Strap wasn’t going to be winning the mother of the year award any time soon.

“She’s my whelp, remember?” Strap sent me a quick glare, “And half raider to boot, wherever she is, she’ll live.

“As to this lot?” Strap continued, gesturing with a hoof to the wounded, “Ten; one cook, four defenders, three pullers, one medical pony, and one fixer. You got that?”

“One cook…” I said, reciting the numbers in my head until I had them memorized, “Got it.”