• Published 12th Jul 2012
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Fallout Equestria - The Code of Honor - FireStorm2247



After losing her stable, a surface-born pegasus, Nova, fights alongside her fellow survivors to make a new life in the Equestrian southeast.

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Chapter 20: Blue Fire's Voice

Author's Note:

Alrighty, and so after two months and change, the next chapter is up, and here we go into the twenties. My goodness, this story is getting big. Anyway, after a lot of reworking and editing in this chapter, I believe that I've made a suitable bridge chapter into what is going to be what could be considered the third arc of this story, with the first having been the Hopeville Arc, and the second having been the Buckley Arc. And so, I hope that despite the longer production time, I hope any and all who read the chapter will enjoy it, and will look forward to more in the future. Time to get cracking on twenty-one! Carry on, my friends.

Chapter 20: Blue Fire’s Voice

“I’ll always be there…”

“Do you have everything?”

With a heavy clang of steel, the silo door fell closed and sealed itself up again, the locking arms sliding back into their places. And blinking away the haze from my eyes, I saw Mother Shimmer as she slowly made her way along the balcony, heading to the stairs that descended into her room; it had been hours since her last visit.

“How are things up there?”

Gunny was the one that dared that question, looking up from his place at my bedside to find her. “Things are calming down now, child.” Shimmer answered… not making eye contact. “And it’s good that they are. The sun is almost fully set.” Wisely, Gunny didn’t ask for any specifics, accepting the ghoul’s answer and leaving her be as she approached the balcony stairs. “Is Nova awake?”

“She just woke up a little bit ago, not even two minutes.” Gunny answered her, sighing lightly.

“She needs to keep resting.”

While woozy from the slumber I’d just woken from, I could still clearly hear the ensuing dialogue. Once Mother Shimmer had seen us relocated to her chamber in the balefire missile silo, she had managed to bring back one of Doctor Preston’s nurses to tend to me, specifically Nurse Sophie from the Marefax expedition. Thankfully, she had not been privy to the standoff in which I’d revealed my role in the terrible attack, and so was more than happy to fix me up proper. It had been a difficult process, for while the gashes had healed normally under the spell of two full healing potions, the bullet from Blackhawk’s revolver had broken off into multiple fragments. As such, Sophie had chosen to put me under in order to extract the bullet pieces, and then reset my rib. She had recommended the out-patient option due to the fact that she needed to use a controlled dose of a medical chem called Hydra, a drug that would increase cell growth and reset my rib to its proper place. It was an advanced form of super healing potion, and one that was potentially dangerous to the user. However, Sophie had assured us that the controlled dose she would use would be just enough to mend my rib and counter the blood loss that would result from extracting a hollow point bullet.

“So long as you’re cautious and use it sparingly, Hydra does its job and puts no danger onto the user. This isn’t the first time I’ve used it on a patient.”

Those were Sophie’s words to put me and my friends at ease.

Grace probably would’ve kept arguing… but Sophie was no Grace…

Now, with a sedative and a small dose of Hydra beginning to wear off within me, I was awake and feeling… well, a little better, at least…

“Do you think you can get back to sleep, Nova?” With a light grunt, I shifted lightly, just enough to glance over my shoulder and find where Gunny was sitting on the floor beside where I lay. But then, against my other side, I felt where a pony shifted, catching the small disturbance I’d made and trying to snuggle back up against my side.

Blake… sound asleep under my right wing.

While I was mostly unconscious, it didn’t take a fully alert mind to know that he’d come up onto my bed as soon as Sophie had finished her work. Thankfully, Shimmer had lent me her very own bed to recover on, and there was more than enough room for both me and my baby brother. I was very grateful for her generosity, and despite everything, there was no ignoring how comfortable I was here… so much so that I was reminded of my own bed back in Stable 181.

“Yeah…” I gave my best nod, feeling the light tingling of a headache that wanted to come to life at the movement. And in reply, Gunny leaned in and brushed his muzzle against my cheek, a gesture that I gladly welcomed before lowering myself fully back down onto the soft bed. And laying my head right by Blake’s, I closed my already half-lidded eyes, already feeling as sleep came rushing back to take me again.

One more time I checked over my equipment. Everything was back in place and ready to go. My Manehattan Police Department armor, fully repaired in my absence, was strapped together, putting a familiar and comfortable weight on me. And Cross’s battle rifle and my Stable 181 markspony carbine were back against my sides on their saddle, settled just under my wings where they usually were. My friends had brought back my saddlebags too, still packed up with all the items I had collected over the weeks – they were back in their place over my flanks. And they’d even brought me back Blue Fire’s Torch, a welcome sight that was now back in its proper place over my back. Everything was back to normal… barring three exceptions.

My pipbuck had been lost back at Stable 184… and with it my mother’s pistol… and it pained me deeply to know that the last material memory of my own mother was in the clutches of the Talons…

And finally there was Archer’s patrol cap. My friends had brought his own personal gift to me back as well…… but this time, I couldn’t bring myself to wear it… much less to even look at it…

“I have everything.” Tentatively, I looked over to my right, finding where Mother Shimmer herself stood waiting close by. There were no escorts, no guards… only her, with her near-glowing green eyes looking upon me with that same caring gleam I’d always seen in her… now touched with concern… hesitation… Goddesses, there wasn’t an evil bone in her body…

“And the rest of you?” she asked, looking past me and to the others.

“You’ve all tended to your wounds by now, I hope?”

Despite Mother Shimmer’s effort to keep herself quiet, her hushed voice provoked a twitch from me as sleep was forced to take a step back. Behind me, I heard the ghoul’s hooves as she stepped around the back of the bed, moving over to where my friends were likewise resting. “Yeah.” In a whisper, Gunny answered her. “We’re good. Thanks for bringing us down here and letting us get ourselves back together.”

“I wish I could let you stay longer, child.” came Shimmer’s low reply. “But I’m afraid that all of you are now in hostile territory. Were it not for the aftermath of this fight keeping them occupied, you would all be in very real danger from my youngers. Even with my lockdown order, Tracer, Amber, and I are barely keeping them docile… and word of Nova’s confession has already traveled around the whole base.”

I kept my eyes closed…

“I know.” Gunny replied, sounding more than a little on edge at Shimmer’s news. “Why don’t they realize Nova’s not the one at fault for this whole Goddess-damned mess?”

“Yeah.” Ivy chimed in. “They know that the Talons forced her to do what she did. She told them that… and they saw how she near broke down in front of them. You can’t get more truthful than that…”

“And they know by Nova’s previous actions in helping Buckley that she’d never bring this down on them intentionally.” Shore added.

“You have to give my ponies time.” Shimmer answered. “We lost two hundred and sixty souls today, and Lily was the only thing that saved us from certain annihilation. They are tired and scared.”

“Yeah…”

“Some of us will recover faster than others. This I know.” Shimmer explained. “And some still might even realize the reality of what happened here today, and truly understand that Nova is not the one to hold accountable for the Talons’ atrocities. But I fear that in the end… many of us will never let this go.”

I just kept my eyes closed… even as I felt a new pair of tears beginning to form…

“Can’t you talk to them?” Gunny asked, a long and uncomfortable pause preceding his downhearted question. “Can’t you convince them? You obviously know Nova’s innocent and believe it like we do.”

A pause followed the ghoul as she begun to move, crossing slowly along my left side. “The Talons came here to destroy us, or to cripple us.” she replied. “Through Archer, I know what’s happening outside our fences, child… War is happening… and it doesn’t take much to piece together why the Talons came back for us. Whether they knew of your previous exploits here or not, they didn’t want to take the chance of us joining the fight outside and providing aid to Challenger. Lily is the sole advantage we have over the Talon Legion, and she always has been. If we sent her to aid Challenger, that city would become a far more formidable threat to them and their mission then they ever have.”

“That makes sense…” Raemor agreed.

“And so, in that case, the Talon Legion succeeded in its mission against us.” Shimmer concluded. “We may have beaten back their attack once again, but we’ve become much weaker now. We are vulnerable, and far more so should Lily leave the base.” At that, she fell silent once more before letting out a sad, throaty sigh. “So to answer your question, child… I will try and convince my youngers to accept Nova’s innocence as we do.” Shimmer answered. “But after everything that was lost here… I believe that many will refuse to listen, even with me being the one to speak to them. Tensions will be high here for a long time following today… and things will be… very difficult to manage. We’ll return to our old ways, seclude ourselves and keep all outsiders out… kill them before they have a chance to get close to our walls.” Again, another pause came… and still, I kept myself still, feigning sleep. “And that’s why… that’s why I need to ask you all to leave, and to not return.”

Silence…

“As I mentioned once before, I ordered a lockdown for the base.” Shimmer explained. “Apart from our artillery teams and Lily’s crew, in which I’ve personally selected the ponies to take up the positions, everypony has been ordered to remain indoors until midmorning tomorrow. I want all of you to take the night to rest and recover as best you can. And tomorrow morning, I’ll escort all of you out of the base myself. But after that, you have to leave and stay away. The situation here is far too delicate for you to remain here any longer than that…… I know you understand.”

“We do…” Gunny answered her. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning, as you say.”

It was time to leave Buckley behind.

“Yeah, we’re all ready, Mother Shimmer.” Stepping up by my side, Gunny strapped the All-Equestrian back to his armor with one final click, the last of his gear to be secured. Together, the both of us looked back to the others, and one after the next, Shore, Ivy, and Raemor gave us their nods of confirmation; among them, only Blake carried nothing, and only he stared to me without making any gesture at all.

“Let’s go then.” Shimmer replied, already walking ahead toward the silo’s balcony stairway. “I’ll walk you to the gate.”

One by one, my friends followed after her, passing me by as I made my way over to Blake. He watched me as I approached him, meeting me gladly as I bowed my head down and nuzzled him along his neck. “Let’s go, Blake.” I urged gently, giving him a light nudge along his back to get him moving. “It’s time to go.”

“Okay…”

“Come on.” Flashing him my best encouraging smile, I turned about and fell in beside him as he begun to move. Together the two of us followed after the others at the rear of our line, Shimmer, Gunny, and Ivy already ascending the stairway when we matched our pace with theirs. We moved on in absolute silence, with only the thin hum and moderate glow of the silo lights accompanying us along the way. It was the same sound both in and out of the silo, the same noise surrounding us even as we moved into the service tunnel connecting the silo to the surface. And it was the noise that served as a reminder, even if trivial, of the very first day we had come across Buckley, when we’d discovered that what we had assumed was an abandoned Old World military base was actually a living and thriving society. The humming of the electricity came from each and every one of the spaced light bulbs hanging down from the ceiling on their cables. And though small, it was still a relief to see that the spark generators powering the base had remained undamaged, even with the facility housing them having been flattened by one of the Guardian missiles.

Farther into the tunnel, the walkway rose upward at a gentle angle, and as I stepped hoof onto the incline, I could see where the tunnel exited into the lobby of the silo’s control building. The reinforced door that I remembered from before was already opened, revealing the building’s ceiling, likewise illuminated with a moderate glow of both the regular lighting and the green monochrome of the door’s active terminal. But when we emerged from the service tunnel, we found the lobby wholly unoccupied, not a single peep or trace that anypony was stationed within, or had been for a while. “Come along, outsiders.” Mother Shimmer spoke up, already at the building’s open double-doors. “I would like to see you on your way well before the lockdown ends.”

From outside, I could already see that the sun was beginning to rise, the ground dimly illuminated with a pale bluish gray. And when we moved into the open, I was greeted once again by a familiar wasteland morning. This time though, the wind had picked up to a strong breeze, the herald of a new weather system on approach for the region. Through the strands of my mane brushing against my eyes, I could see the thick unaltered cloud cover, now shaded with dreary blues and greens that were mixed in with the normal blacks and silvers. Following them across the sky, I had a clear line-of-sight to see the sun where it was making its ascent over the eastern horizon, lighting up the clouds there with its first rays… something that I gradually forced myself to focus on as Shimmer led us to the west runway. Because while I didn’t look back to find them, I remembered where missiles had made impact near our path. And though most of the damage, thankfully, was at my back, there had been two impacts in the base’s south side, one of which had claimed one of the howitzers.

They were sights, now, that I altogether wanted to avoid looking at again… ever…

In silence, broken only by the continuing wind, we traversed the runway before arcing back to the right and heading down the final stretch of the base. Now, the main entrance was in our sights, and like the silo’s control station, it too looked deserted. Normally, I would’ve been able to see the heads of the guards stationed up in the twin watchtowers that flanked the chain-link gate. There might’ve even been a patrol or two pacing the south wall, and at this hour, there might’ve also been spotlights, or any kind of lighting. There was none of that…

But there was something there… somepony.

There was indeed one pony standing alone at the gate, and looking up the line, I could see that I hadn’t been the only one to spot the figure. Mother Shimmer, too, had locked her eyes onto the lone pony, and one after the next, the others found the figure. But it was then that a voice called out to reach us. “Are they good to go?”

“The wounded among them were treated and have made a good recovery over the course of the night, Archer.” Mother Shimmer spoke back, making my eyes pop rounder in surprise; she didn’t seem at all bothered that he was outside during the base’s lockdown. “They have been fed and have been able to rest, as I said they would. I do not intend to just throw them to the wolves, child.”

Archer… the pony was indeed Archer, revealed when he abruptly ruffled out a pair of formerly hidden wings as his steel blue color begun to show itself. “Good… That’s good.”

“And did you bring what I asked you to?” Shimmer then asked, trotting ahead of us to meet the stallion flier where he waited as the rest of us fell back together into a group.

“Right here.” he answered, backing up a step to reveal a single saddlebag set at his hooves. “As promised.”

“Thank you.” Turning, Mother Shimmer watched us as we formed up before her, Blake and I stepping up to the center of us as the others fanned out. “Outsiders… in your time within our walls, you’ve left a very long passage in our history book, one that speaks a story of both victory and defeat. In my experience, you don’t find stories like that as often as you find those that lean only to one side or the other. Buckley is changed now because of your actions,” And as she spoke, her eyes came to me when she added, “and whether or not you want to hear so, Buckley is changed especially because of yours, Nova.” Immediately I winced away, sparked at the words she spoke. And yet, even with those strong eyes upon me, I couldn’t distinguish any kind of specific tone in her voice. For while she locked me in place with that mighty stare, just as she had done the very first time she had laid her eyes on me, there was no hesitation, no severity… no anger… in what she was saying. In fact, she spoke very straightforwardly, not without emotion, but with strength and honesty. “In the coming days, as we rebuild ourselves, we will be confronted with many new challenges as a community. And while that struggle to recover will be burdened with the hatred that has grown from the loss of our friends, it will be aided in turn with the sincerity and compassion that was shown to us by ponies who we once thought to be no more than mere savages.”

And I listened… bowing my head down low as I relived my very first day in Buckley… when she first looked upon me with that stare that seemed to weigh my very soul. To me, it felt like she was doing exactly that for the second time… only now… she was taking into account everything that I had been through and done, everything between my arrival to this beautiful place and this very moment.

“Make no mistake – I am deeply pained at the loss of so many of my youngers… my dear children.” she continued, this time with her words laced with exhausted sadness that had once been hidden; even she, with all her strength, couldn’t conceal how the terrible attack yesterday had wounded her… and I shut my eyes tight, my ears beginning to pin back against my head. “It’s a scar that will be with me for years to come… and there’s no hiding or denying that fact. But yet… despite everything that’s happened, outsiders, I know that the lessons my youngers and I have learned from each of you, both the good and the bad, will culminate into an entity that will make us even stronger in the end, when this storm passes us by. It is my vow that Buckley will rise from the tragedy that struck us, and that we will, all of us, become better.”

Here, Mother Shimmer let herself stop, giving me all the time in the world to let her words sink in. To me, what she was saying was… in great part, very surprising. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Shimmer had been forced to tally her losses and sum up the damage that had been done. In that time, my friends and I had been literally sealed within her silo, making a cell to keep us out of the sight of the hundreds of shocked, weary, and angry souls that had to clean up. But despite this, it took no effort of thought to understand that Shimmer had been forced to see terrible things – the destruction… three buildings lost, the others damaged to varying degrees…… and the casualties… two hundred and sixty ponies killed… over a quarter of the total population of the settlement. And the situation had forced her to behold all of it, to see each of those who’d lost their lives where they had fallen in battle, to see how they had died, and to see the loved ones whom they had left behind as they mourned. In my time here, I had come to quickly understand just how deep Shimmer’s bond was with those she led. And before I had left Buckley for the first time, I had come to see her as a leader with such compassion for her ponies that each citizen of the base made a small part of who she was. Buckley’s ponies were indeed Shimmer’s children, and not so by blood, but by the nearly seventy years of history they had shared.

The first time I had left, I had seen a bond that was unbreakable, a community that was unshakeable, and a leader who was filled with pride at all she and her youngers had achieved. And now, as I left Buckley behind for the second and final time, I saw a bond that had been crippled, a community that had been ravaged, and a leader who was showing mercy to a mare who didn’t deserve it.

And the depression that had drove me into darkened silence ever since my confession on that day… was becoming numb under a creeping sense of frustration.

“Now, as we part ways, I find it within myself to understand the truth and to know that there is nothing to forgive.” she continued, her voice drawing only my eyes up to where she stood with Archer. “We have lost a great deal. But in time, we will gain much more. It is because of this, and because of what we see in you, that we want you to know these things Nova, to know that we understand your innocence, and to know that we will hope that you come to understand it too.”

But looking down, I only shook my head at them, a slight movement… all I could manage…

“And it’s why Mother Shimmer and I wanted you to have these.” At his place at Shimmer’s left side, Archer bowed his head down and to the leather sack he had brought. And taking hold of it, biting down on the very top of the bag, he picked it up and came around to walk towards me. In that moment, a sudden mental impulse urged me sharply to back away, to step aside and refuse… whatever it was he intended to present to me. But I stayed in place, finding his eyes on mine as he came to a stop. And gently he set the bag down, my ears picking up a light, delicate clinking sound as whatever was inside touched the stone. “In this bag you’re going to find four different items, a couple of which might look familiar to you.” he explained, now backing up a step as he stood back up to his full height. “You’ve seen three of them before. You found them, actually, back when you and I flew to Shimmer’s old farm.”

Despite my efforts to remain unresponsive, I couldn’t help but raise a puzzled stare to him at his recollection of one of our past exploits; I remembered the trip… but not what it was that we found. “The fourth is something that I want you to have for… well, a different reason. But each item I’ve left in that bag is something that I hope will help you on whatever path you take once you leave.” Then Mother Shimmer added to Archer’s words, remaining at her place farther back. “And now, if you would do me one final favor, child – see for yourself what’s inside. I would like to see what you think of what I’ve left you.”

But to that… to that, I just had to hesitate. “Why are you giving me this?” I asked lowly. “Why are you giving me anything at all?”

Shimmer, however, shook her head. “Child,” she said, tender and careful. “I’ve given you my reasons. Please… open it.”

I shut my eyes as a quiet sigh escaped me, and bowing my head, I looked upon the bag. The leather was crumpled up on itself, leaving an indistinguishable shape that prevented me from getting any hint as to what Shimmer wanted me to have. But with one final exhale, I approached the sack and reached out a hoof to it. Right away I felt something hard within, a smooth and solid texture as I pawed the bag open. It slid apart without much resistance, parting away for a faint twinkle to catch my eye. I recognized the glint of the crystal, sparked even in the pale light of the early morning. And as I opened the bag further, a second glint of light accompanied the first, coming from a second item that was the very same as the first. And reaching a hoof in, I touched over the crystal, recognizing what the two items were. I was looking at a pair of memory orbs, both of which were sitting just in front of the third of the four items within. This time I felt metal as I traced my hoof over the sack’s contents, and I knew right away from my mission to the Shimmermist Farm that where there were memory orbs, there was also a recollector. Yes. That was definitely the third item… but the fourth… Last, I felt the recognizable shape of a trigger guard, next to which a small metal pipe folded back behind it. And following it with the edge of my hoof, I felt smooth metal, new and unblemished, all the way to where it ended… where I felt a hammer… a pistol hammer.

That got me to look deeper into the bag, squinting my eyes while reaching to the bottom and lifting the pistol up and out. Even with the little light there was, I could see the blue color, the same sapphire that adorned every inch of Mother Shimmer’s personal sidearm, the pistol I had seen her with when she had broken up the mob that had wanted me dead. The fact that this weapon had been Mother Shimmer’s would have been more than enough for me to outright refuse what she was giving me… were it not for the final detail that I saw upon the weapon, freezing mind and body alike.

It was a symbol, stamped on the back of the pistol’s slide just under the rear iron sights and in front of the hammer. It was a lighter color of blue, only slightly so, but enough to distinguish it from the darker near-black shade of sapphire that was all around it, enough for me to clearly see what it was – a fireball… a blue flame just like mine… the second perfect replica that I had seen on yet another weapon that I had never wielded before…

First was Blue Fire’s Torch

Now… this…

Even with my having seen it once before… I was stuck in place from the startling reveal; once had seemed impossible enough… but twice

“Now you know why I want you to have it.”

Mother Shimmer’s voice yanked my eyes away from the startling sight, taking me back before I could become further trapped in it. And yet at seeing her, I found myself quickly slipping back into my former state, that urge to step away coming back as I returned to the real world. Still… “This weapon…” A quick glance back to the bag… there the flame was, just the same as before. “My rifle…” I continued, nodding back to the Torch, still holding eye contact with the ghoul. “Me…”

“All have the same markings.” Shimmer finished for me, giving me a single sagely nod.

“How’s that possible?” I asked her. “And how did you get this?”

A faint smile grew on her lips, apologetic as she slowly shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand that myself – how that is possible.” she answered. “As for where I found it – I’ve had that weapon for many, many years, Nova. I found it back during my days of exploration, way back dozens of years ago in a ruined grocery mart, laying by the skull of an old skeleton. I never knew who its original owner was, or what the history of the weapon was. But the mark I found on it, the mark I saw you carrying, both etched on your rifle and as your very own cutie mark… it showed me that this symbol, this blue flame, is very different… even if I haven’t the faintest idea as to how.”

“Different?” I ventured.

She raised a hoof, gesturing promptly to the bag. “Look at what’s before you. Look at your little brother, and what you yourself have carried with you. Look back to your history, even.” she said. “This blue flame is much more common than either of us may have originally thought, child. You’ve seen it multiple times now, and I too have seen it time and time again, more than just when you came to us. And it’s what I’ve given you that pistol for, and those memory orbs. In each of them, I’ve seen that symbol, and with the tie you have to it, I feel that these are the most appropriate gifts to leave to you. That way, perhaps you might figure out what it means in time.”

One more time, silence took us over, prompting me to look back to the bag as Shimmer’s explanation echoed in my head. In all my time in the wasteland, or even my whole life, for that matter, I had never even dreamed that I would come across anything as baffling as Blue Fire’s Torch. And in all its lethal beauty, that weapon’s permanent etching that it carried, a perfect replica of my cutie mark, was something that continuously teased my thoughts, putting me into one of my thought spells at the times where I could’ve been resting. Every time, it would remind me of Stable 181, and specifically, of where the blue flame had taken shape within it. And there, it had only shown itself twice in all those years – just my father and I had carried it. My father had found his mark well before I had even been thought of by my parents, and I had seen it on him ever since I was a foal. But then came me, the timid little mare that became the oddity of the Stable, who had somehow, someway, come to have a cutie mark that copied her father’s down to the finest details. It had been talked about in whispers and confused mutterings when it had come, and with its peculiarity aside, it had been the second and last time it had appeared in my old home.

But out here on the surface, in all my days of wandering the southeast… my mark, my history, had returned to me in that weapon. And even with the tremendous gap in time between the discovery of Blue Fire’s Torch and the attaining of my cutie mark, that rifle had tied the surface to my life underground. And now, I had been presented with what was unquestionably a sibling weapon to the Torch. Their color, their marks… coincidence was out of the question, both when I’d found the Torch… and now upon seeing… this… But what would have been a tremendous gale of questions and extended reflection was hastily brushed aside by the mental fog that had come from yesterday’s terrible battle. As if in a fit of jealousy, the printed images of all that I had witnessed that day came rushing back, leaving not an inch of room for what could have warranted a distraction from the crushing guilt that I was now left with.

And that guilt shackled itself to me… and I looked away from the bag.

“I can’t take these.” Shaking my head in refusal, I took a step back from the bag and let it be. “These belong to you, and it’s not my place to take them… not after what happened…”

“I have made this choice willingly, Nova.” But as I expected, Shimmer leapt onto the chance to stop me. “If I blamed you for yesterday’s battle, then we wouldn’t even be talking. You have known me long enough now that you must feel my words hold weight to them. You must believe by now that I never lie to those who have shown me just intentions and moral hearts, and you and your friends each have shown me those things, that and much more.”

Oh good…

I showed her a moral heart…

“So believe me now when I say that I still carry a great deal of faith in you, child, even with the Talons’ attack having come and gone.” she said. “I want you and your friends to know that when you’re out there in the wastes. I want you to know that I still believe in you, and I want you to know that I always will.”

Listening to Mother Shimmer… I knew that there was tremendous meaning in her words, just like there had always been. Her wisdom, her age, her personality, her angelic and virtuous compassion and love… there was a significance in her voice that I felt would never truly die. But listening to her had become harder and harder to manage, for those reasons exactly… And hearing how… forgiving… her tone was… I just couldn’t understand how a good mare like her could forgive a decision that had been so destructive.

I couldn’t see the why of it…

“As will I.”

Archer…

After what seemed to be hours, after so long just listening… Archer spoke. Only after a small pause of uncertainty, I found myself drawn to him, my eyes flicking up to where he remained close by. And when he finally had my eyes on his, the handsome flier gave me a small smile… just like all those times before – Marefax, Buckley… the dance floor in the concert hall… It was a smile that, for just a moment, squeezed through the iron wall I had thrown up in front of my emotions… giving me just a bit of warmth in the cold of my thoughts. And in my inability to find a response, he took my eyes on his as a cue to move, and with a slow walk, he approached me. “I’ve only known you for… roughly ten days now.” he said. “But in this world, a day might as well be a whole week. And in the time I’ve known you, I’ve see a pony of far greater quality than nearly every other I’ve ever met or known my whole life.”

I watched him all the way to where he stopped before me, just past arm’s reach, right behind the bag.

“And after everything I’ve seen you go through, everything I’ve heard you say, all the good that I’ve seen you do… I can’t find a single reason as to why I should turn my back on you. And nothing you say is going to change that.” Goddesses… Archer… how could you really feel that way about me? “Mother Shimmer’s right Nova – there’s a tremendous amount of good in you, and it hasn’t been just your intentions that have proven that. Your actions, your emotions, your feelings towards Buckley, and hell, the rest of the southeast – all of those have proven that, too.” He paused, reacting to how I lowered my eyes away in shameful disbelief. But he followed me, bowing his head down to my level until I looked to him again with a timid sideways glance. “I know it. Shimmer knows it. Your friends know it. And I think you do too, even if you don’t believe it yet.” And once again, he gave me that same smile. “So take Shimmer’s gifts, Nova, for her and for me. Take them to remember our words and our hopes, and to remind you that we still believe in you.”

Suddenly, my body hitched, my lips parting to let a surprise sob escape me. But I snapped myself still in retaliation, barely keeping back a pair of tears that wanted to fall, to reveal the gratitude that existed only as a timid spark within me. Because despite Archer’s words, despite the sincerity I heard in them… I just couldn’t shake that nagging question of why. In his little speech, Archer seemed like he was wholly unbothered by what had occurred yesterday. Like Shimmer, he was, at least on the outside, wholly the same in regards to his emotions towards the damage and the losses that Buckley had suffered. In fact, in all of this, Archer sounded like he had when we had first parted ways… just a stallion giving his best wishes to somepony he held in high regards. That was something I just couldn’t understand, even after he had spoken what had to have been his most carefully selected words to form the encouragement he tried to give me now, to make me feel better before my second and final departure from his home. And as touching as his words were, there was a rising irritation at the indifference that I perceived from him. It didn’t seem like him… and yet that smile was unfading on his face to speak otherwise.

Even my demolished self-confidence and the misery that stood high above it couldn’t keep back the truth that… that Archer really was speaking with his heart, with truth… And still… I believed his heart, and the words woven from it, was misplaced…

“Will you take them, Nova?” Archer had given me a little time do dwell in my own silence, only tentatively calling me back to him to try and get a verbal answer. Patiently he waited, his head still bowed to meet me at my eye level. And looking back to those eyes, his hope for an affirmative answer was the most prominent emotion written in them, his hope that I would oblige him and Shimmer and take what they wished me to have. And really… after everything he’d said to me… a part of me did feel that it just wouldn’t be right to turn his request down… not after I heard in him just how highly he thought of me.

He, the one who had caught my eye so suddenly when I had first seen him, and who had later shown himself as strong, caring, noble… honorable… in every way that mattered. And now, with this support and understanding that he was giving me, without doubt or deceit… that option of taking what he was giving me made a tremendous push to claim the high ground… to be my ultimate path over my initial refusal that fought just as hard to become the same.

But… in the end…

“No…” With a slow shake of my head, I gave him the answer he didn’t want to hear, the both of us rising back up to our full heights as a frown begun to spread across his face.

“Nova, please.” he pressed, sliding the bag back closer to me with a forehoof. “We’re telling you the truth when we say how we feel on this. You have to believe me when I say that… please, believe me.”

But that, to my ears, was another repetition of something that I already denied as truth, even if it wasn’t reiterated word for word… and it served only to knock down the resistance I’d put up to restrain myself from speaking the feelings that ultimately prevailed in my tornado of thought. “Archer…” I said, sighing. “I appreciate what you said, I really do… But I… don’t… feel worthy of this. It doesn’t feel right to me to take anything from either of you… and I think that these things you’re saying… everything about me… I can’t bring myself to believe it.”

With a frustrated huff, Archer retaliated. “Nova, listen to yourself. Do you think Shimmer and I are so stubborn that we’d hold a high opinion of you simply because we can? We’re not hiding in blissful ignorance from all this, and you need to understand-”

“Archer, just stop!”

But the frustration I had kept contained, the confusion and disbelief… it was emerging all at once.

Now… the only thing on my mind – I had to know why.

In a blink he went quiet, jolted into silence from my command as I fixed him with a firm stare. “Do you want to know why I can’t take that stuff?” I queried. “Because I can’t figure you out, Archer, you or Shimmer. I just can’t figure out how you seem to be so indifferent about all this. I mean, look around you. Look at what was done, what I brought to your home. Why is it that after all of that, you’re simply wishing me luck and sending me on my way like the last time I left??”

“Nova, calm down…”

But I ignored Ivy’s plea. “I don’t get it, Archer…” I continued, narrowing my eyes. “Me leaving this time – it’s not the same as before! The first time, I actually did good things for Buckley! I helped this community achieve its goals, and I helped it gain a new good perspective on the outside world! And now I’ve destroyed years of growth and progress with the push of a button!” Pointing to him, I caught a glimpse of Shimmer where she remained behind him; even she looked a little taken aback at my outburst. “So tell me why! Tell me why it looks to me like you’re just brushing this whole thing off like it’s nothing at all!”

“Stop, Nova.” the pegasus answered, lower as his own eyes slightly narrowed. “I’m not brushing this off-.”

But I pushed ahead. “Then tell me why it seems that way!!”

And he did… his own voice raising to overpower mine when he responded, “Because I’m seeing this for how it really is, that’s why!!”

Oh, good.

“And how is it really, Archer?!” I challenged, taking a step closer to him as we now glared back at one another. “Tell me how it is!!”

“Nova!”

“The Talons are responsible for this! Not you!” he answered angrily, closing the rest of the space between us, putting us nearly muzzle to muzzle. “Goddesses, you said that yourself when you told us what happened, and now you’re denying your own damn words! You need to see that and you need to stop!”

“And you need to quit pretending that I’m not to blame for this!!” I shot back, refusing to back down under his agitated glower. “You have no reason to side with me, Archer! You’re too smart and you’re too good for that!”

“NOVA!”

“I have every reason to side with you!” Archer persistently replied, stomping a hoof down on the pavement. “If I thought you were at fault, do you think you’d even be here right now? Do you really believe that I would’ve let you live??” His tone matched with mine, he threw that dark question onto the table; I didn’t back down even an inch from him, not even then. “We may have worked together, Nova, but you don’t know half of who I am or what I’ve gone through! But if you did, then you’d understand that if this was your fault, I wouldn’t care about you the way-”

SMACK!

One move… one quick swing… and my hoof connected solidly with his jaw to shut the stubborn pegasus up. And right after him, everypony went quiet… and Archer… he remained frozen with the surprise of my sneak attack, his mouth slightly open and his head tilted to the right from the sufficient force of my hit. Only after a long pause, in which my breathing had become heavier, did he glance back to me, closing his mouth… but staying quiet. “You’re wrong, Archer… You’re wrong about me…” I made extra sure to keep my eyes on him when I finally spoke up again… I made sure he got the message. “You’re wrong…”

He didn’t speak… he didn’t finish the sentence that I had broken… and nopony else spoke either… not even Blake. And I didn’t stay to see what kind of reactions were waiting to take up my attention. Instead, I only turned away, putting all of them at my back and bringing the gate into my sight.

And passing Archer by, my farewell already spoken, I walked on towards Buckley’s closed entrance.

And when I came to the chain link fence… I sat down on the stone… and I waited.

Alone…

And in the gloomy light, I stared out toward the south, watching the wasteland morning creep over the familiar road that would lead us one final time from Buckley back to our home.

Gunny was right – we needed to be home, back in Hopeville where we… where I… belonged…

*** *** ***

Thunder.

Another gentle rumble echoed through the air, coming from the east to glide past us as a smooth and… rather soothing wave of sound. There was a new storm system on the way, with the thunder having joined our company only a short time before now. It was middle-evening, with the light of the day alive and full, but approaching the start of its cyclic diminishing. And that was my indicator that we were right on time, making good progress towards getting back to Hopeville.

Once more, as had become our routine, we’d be making camp in the old news radio building to get some solid sleep and be as well-rested as possible for the next day. But this time, more than the others, I welcomed that break in our journey home. And I intended to take full advantage of it in order to clear my head, to get away from the world for a few hours and recover; it would give me the time I needed to focus on doing whatever it took to prepare ourselves for what had undoubtedly escalated into the war that had only recently been nothing more than words on tense, hushed whispers.

During our march through the dust, which had tinted the very air a light brown ochre at the strengthened winds, I had been silent and completely unresponsive, lost in the mental turmoil that my guilt had won me. Only during the morning did my friends try getting me to talk, to explain to them what it was that had come over me back at Buckley. All of them had been worried at my little… outburst… and that was especially the case with Gunny and Blake. My little brother himself had seen how I had become more open to Archer over our first stay there, and he had even seen us when we had danced together… on that one glorious night. And so, my last moments together with the pegasus stallion had both confused him and made him a little anxious at my actions. He had been the only one to at least get some kind of reaction out of me in the first leg of our journey home, when he’d voiced again and again his bewilderment as to how I had so suddenly raised my voice, and struck, for that matter, the stallion who had been nothing but respectable… nothing but good to me. And indeed, the more Blake pushed the subject, the more I found myself asking the same questions… and regretting the way I’d said goodbye. But in the end, he too had let me be, as had been requested by Gunny, who eventually thought it best to let me sort things through on my own…

At least… until the time came where I called upon my friends for support.

And now, as we approached our stop for the night… I was close to that point.

No more than a couple hundred yards away, the southeast’s radio station was now in sight, a familiar little building sitting as a small stone box against the flat expanse of the dusty earth, with the three standing radio towers, as well as the collapsed fourth and the broken dish, all as I’d seen them before. I was at the lead of our group, a short distance ahead of the others so as to keep myself in my own personal bubble, as I had done for the whole of the trip. Thankfully, for the time being, the past finally put itself to rest, giving me the opportunity to hear the voices of my friends as they continued a conversation on the subject of dinner, something I felt most if not all of them were looking forward to. It had been nonstop walking for us since leaving Buckley behind for good, and even I was feeling a little hungry. It was another bit of motivation to keep me walking, to get me across the rest of the short distance sitting between us and a night of good rest.

“Nova!”

My ears twitched together as the formerly quiet hoofsteps of my companions begun to pick up… or at least the steps of one of them. Galloping towards me, I picked up the lighter weight of Blake’s hooves before I craned my head around to find him over my shoulder. And I immediately noted his wide eyes, worry written in them as he tried to get my attention. “What’s the matter, Blake?” I asked, coming to a stop.

But just as I did, so he followed me, grinding to a halt to point up with a hoof, the same direction that the others behind him were beginning to look. “Nova, look!”

“Up high!” Gunny too had found what Blake had, horn lighting up in preparation for an attack.

Then I followed, facing front and looking skyward. And right away I found something out of place against the cloud ceiling. Even in the darkening grey, the similarly silver figure in the sky was easy to find as it dived down toward us. But it was that silver color that got me to stay what would have been a snap move for my battle saddle’s firing bit. The figure was too small for a griffin, and it didn’t sport any of the Talons’ colors. No. I kept myself still because that silver color enveloped a winged pony, and when it begun to slow in the air, dropping its speed to a hover as it came in for a landing, I could see a full body suit of steel armor, the black visor of which was looking down upon us as the pegasus descended.

“Wait, wait!” Calling back, I looked to my friends as I shouted my command, glad to see that Gunny was already standing down as the others looked on. Then a heavy thud on the dirt drew my eyes to the front, where the steel-clad pony had landed in a hasty maneuver, wings folding back against armored sides with a light clack of metal. And staring eye to eye with the fellow pegasus, a light jolt of realization shook me to remind me that I was standing before a familiar presence. Yes… the compact minigun and the four-shot rocket launcher that made the steel rig’s heavy battle saddle, the armor that made a nearly impenetrable shell, the visor I had looked into several times just yesterday… yes, this was definitely a familiar pony… or rather, a familiar mare. “It’s you… It’s you isn’t it?”

“Nova.”

It was her – the one that had helped me escape Stable 184.

“You’re finally back.” she said, leaning just slightly to her left to catch a glimpse of the others behind me. “I was beginning to worry that something might have happened to you in Buckley.”

“What are you doing out here?” I asked her, bypassing her remark to get straight to the point as my friends came to a stop at my left and right to listen in; knowing now who this pony was, a whole barrage of questions came to the forefront of my concern. “Did Captain Saber send you here? Are you waiting for us?”

“Did you make it to Hopeville yesterday?” Gunny chimed in where he stood next to me on my right. “Is everything alright over there?”

But to my surprise, the steel pegasus only about-faced. “You all need to come with me.” she said instead, leaving me staring as she begun to walk. “The radio building. Come on.”

“Hey!” Gunny called, moving past me as the pegasus continued toward the station. “Hey, answer us! Did you get there or not?”

“Gunny! Aren’t those Stable uniforms?”

From my left, Ivy called for Gunny to stop with her startled question. That note of surprise sent a ripple of anxiousness through my gut when I looked past the armored pegasus and to the station, Gunny copying me in an instant. And instead of seeing the station’s closed double doors like before, I found a half dozen ponies all trotting out onto the dirt, the doors now wide opened. And on each of them, true to Ivy’s observation, was the black and blue security armor that had been our Stable’s standard issue security rig. Even as I watched, another two followed the others out as they came to a standstill one after the next, looking back towards us to try and recognize our faces. There were two others up top, two unicorns standing at the lip of the roof, both with rifles floating at their sides as they looked on; and with them, I could barely make out yet other ponies, looking outside from behind the station’s entrance.

“Yeah… why the hell are all of them way out here?”

Though Gunny ventured the question to himself more so than us, it echoed my own anxiety as we begun to move again, following at the beckoning of our steel companion. And it was her that called out to the guards first. “Captain Saber! Nova and her friends are here!”

Just as soon as she had said that all-too-familiar name, I spotted where two new ponies moved at a brisk trot past the others, hurrying out to meet us. And as they drew close, I immediately recognized one of them, his colors and his face. Captain Saber was ahead of his companion, the dusty blue stallion with the light brown mane fully garbed in his own security rig. And the pony with him was a mare, a unicorn with a white coat and light blue mane, equally equipped and equally weathered. Together we slowed, the both of them looking amongst each of us individually as they drew to a stop… the both of them carrying looks of genuine disbelief… and even greater worry…

“You’re alive…” The Captain was the first to speak up, turning his wide… very tired eyes to me.

Goddesses… he looked exhausted…

“Are you two alright?” he asked me, looking down to my right just as Blake brushed up against my legs. “Neither of you look injured…”

“We’re fine, Captain.” I responded with a small nod, as assuring as I could manage; he wasn’t having any of it. “We’re both fine.”

Saber’s eyes fell shut at my words, our leader letting out a long sigh as he shook his head. “I’d feared the worst, Nova… for you and your brother…” he said, eyes coming open once again. “When I found out that you two were taken… found out that Gracie was among the casualties… that Blossom…… Goddesses, you have no idea how relieved I am to see you both alive and intact.”

“I told you we’d bring them back, Captain.” Gunny voiced. “I knew we would.”

“It’s damn good to see you again, Nova.”

And I shared that sentiment wholeheartedly… so very thankful to be back among friends.

These faces, strange as it was to find them out here in the wastes, belonged to the ponies that I had yearned to see since my banishment from Buckley. On the whole trip back, I had thought only of them, only of the ones who shared my history and my hardships, and how I had so desperately longed to step into home territory. And finding some of those ponies again, after what seemed like a year being shackled and forced into loyal service to our enemy, made a force of consolation for me. But despite the relief that I shared with dear Saber, that question of why pushed its way back into my thoughts to put a stop to our brief reunion, to occupy my full attention. Now, I was asking the same question as Gunny had with far more mental clarity, and the exhaustion that I could now plainly see on both Saber and his companion’s faces was a rather ominous provoker of that one-word question. Both of them look battered, tired… weak… on a level that I had never seen in either of them before… and I was hesitant to ask the question myself…

“Captain, I didn’t expect to see you out here.” Gunny said, slow as he gave him a quick salute. “I thought you said you’d be keeping things together at home while we went out to look for Nova.”

The Captain flinched… hitched as if struck…

Nopony could have missed that… and the whole atmosphere changed in a blink, from mere surprise to a terrible constricting fear. I felt it all around me, even as Captain Saber slightly sagged, realizing how obvious his motion had been, and I knew the others felt it too… That pit in my stomach opened up wide, paralyzing… just like in the National Guard Bunkers… “Saber?” The Captain was pulled from his daze at my voice, his eyes flicking back to me. But a pony’s eyes… they never lied… and I saw defeat in them, that feeling manifesting as the core of his fatigue. And with all of that… I could see the truth… and…… “Saber… don’t tell me that…”

And he looked away…

With cold dread, I leaned back, taking one step away. “No… no, no, no…”

“Captain what happened??” Gunny demanded sharply.

“I’m sorry.” Saber said, low and weak as he begun to shake his head. “The Talons…”

They’d attacked Hopeville…

“They attacked again.” the white mare confessed, picking up for Saber. “Happened just yesterday around midday. We saw them first when they were assembling a battalion off to the east, herded our non-combatants into shelters and got our defenses up… but they didn’t come after us first.”

“They used missiles… didn’t they?”

To Ivy’s question, which her tone of voice spoke that she already knew the answer, the unicorn gave her a single crestfallen nod; I felt myself beginning to tremble. “Five of them, one right after the next.” he replied. “We were ready to repel a ground attack, not what they threw at us. Believe me, if we had any idea that the Talons packed that kind of weaponry we would’ve called on Challenger for more support, and we would’ve done it days ago. But they took us wholly by surprise using those things.”

“How many hit?” Raemor asked him; though silent, my breathing begun to quicken… provoked as images of the Guardian bunkers flashed before me.

“Three of the five.” the mare answered him. “We had a batch of outsiders that had stopped in for a couple nights to rest up and resupply, and they packed some serious tech, a vehicle of some kind, something Old World. But even with two knocked out of the air, Hopeville took a lot of damage. And when the missiles hit, we became scrambled. Some of us stayed at our posts, others went to help the wounded that survived the missile hits. That gave the Talons all the time they needed to storm in and scatter us further. Their attack was quick and decisive… and hell, Captain Saber barely managed to regroup everypony to get an organized counterattack going. But in the end… we had to abandon the town.”

“And so we’ve come here.” Saber finally said, nodding behind him to the radio station. “We managed to get out in a couple larger groups that eventually found their way back to each other, and then we used our pipbucks to get us here. Now, we’ve got a hundred and twenty souls packed in that station.” With a sad sigh, he once again bowed his head. “I’m afraid it’s the best we have now… Hopeville belongs to the Talons.”

And that was it…

Even if I had tried to steel myself, any resistance I might’ve thrown up to prevent an absolute breakdown would’ve been swept away like an insignificant pebble. I hitched once before my whole body bowed under a crushing weight, and with head lowered and eyes shut tight I begun to sob openly. It was the only thing I heard, the only thing I felt – my weeping. In just that moment, learning that Hopeville had been overrun, I was thrown for a second time into the terrible defeat of yesterday. Buckley Air Force Base had been bad enough. Watching the destruction unfold as the Talons made their move against Mother Shimmer and her ponies, witnessing the savage and unprovoked desecration of a settlement that guarded the most beautiful of treasures in the wastes… knowing that I had given a merciless enemy the tools to bring that destruction to the southeast – all of it had wounded me, beaten me down, and thrown me broken into a dark corner of my inner self that I never once had contemplated to exist. And when I had been forced to walk side by side with those wounds, those images and tormenting memories of what I had carved into Buckley through my choices, my time in silence walking through the dust had me reaching out with hope that home would be the one thing that would bring me away from that darkness. I had hoped. I had tried to escape the past, to reach for that one light that would save me. But now, I knew an even worse truth… and it was more than I could bear – I had brought death to Buckley… but I had brought it to Hopeville too… I had…

I had cost my ponies, the only others to have survived Stable 181 and live to this moment, their home… our home…

We had lost two homes now…

And I was responsible for it…

“Nova… I’m sorry…”

I could hear Captain Saber despite my tears… I could hear his sympathy at how his news had put me to weeping. “Nova…” But then my name reached me, carried on Gunny’s voice.

And I felt a hoof touch my side.

I jumped away, reaching up and punching the hoof back with a pained half-angry, half-sad grunt. Gunny met my eyes, staring startled at my move as I fixed him with a tear-streaked glare. “This is my fault…” I whimpered, my sobs continuing to come freely to rattle my speech.

“This isn’t your fault, Nova.” Gunny retorted concernedly, taking a slow step toward me. “You know that.”

But I shook my head; I refused to believe that… I had tried to once… and in any other circumstance, I might have believed him. But I couldn’t believe that now… I couldn’t! “It’s all my fault!!” I cried, backing further away from him and the others.

“Nova!” Blake shouted, wide-eyed with worry as he trotted up by Gunny.

“What the hell are you talking about, Nova??” the white unicorn demanded, lost.

“Nova, you need to calm down.” Gunny urged, taking one more step closer before he reached a hoof out to me. “Alright? We just need to get you inside so you can rest, and then we-”

“GET AWAY!!”

With a sharp snap of sound my wings fanned out wide, and in a single lunge I threw myself skyward, pumping frantically at the air to leave the ground behind. “NOVA!!” Gunny called loudly up after me, the voices of the others promptly joining in chorus with his to get me to stop. But I didn’t, only putting the clouds in my blurred vision as I climbed into the air. Never missing a wing beat, I quickly pushed myself to my top flight speed, the rush of the wind chilling my cheeks where the tears had trailed along them. And up I went, higher and higher, keeping my sights only on the cloud ceiling… which had a shockingly sudden allure to it as I put the surface world at my back…

As if the surface was some kind of… hideous monster… and the sky was the one place I could hide from it…

In fact… it was just like that…

Already my wings were beginning to ache, only dull and slight, but still enough for me to feel it. And still I kept pushing, still I kept my eyes forward… and I became lost in my flight. Mere seconds… minutes… I didn’t know how long I had been moving… but I didn’t look back to check. No. The open air was the only thing around me as I climbed straight vertical, and ahead, the clouds were much, much closer to me now, more so than they ever had been before. Their features were becoming distinguishable, the more miniscule details beginning to reveal themselves as I climbed higher still. Amidst their regular fluff, I could see tendrils and wisps of cloud as they moved among the puffy bodies, looking to almost be hanging from them like so many decorative ornaments even as they continued to slowly twirl, twist, and contort in the wind. It was something that had been nearly impossible to see from all the way back down on the ground, something that had blended in with what was always perceived as the smooth clumps of cloud that always maintained an unblemished surface. And as I continued on up, the longest of those little tendrils begun to pass me, and the air abruptly begun to grow hazier as it did cooler… as I… as I entered the clouds themselves.

Just a moment later, and I was literally inside a cloud… and I still pressed on…

Now there was nothing but grey and white, even when I finally dared a look back to the ground; left and right, up and down, the clouds were all around me, concealing even the wasteland itself. I had flown into the ceiling… and it was the clouds that finally got me to ease my frantic pace, to slow my wings and take the time to observe. Despite the return of the emotional whirlwind that had first come at Buckley, I felt it giving just a few precious inches of ground, letting me take in what I was seeing… and immediately, I was making a connection. With the surface out of sight, and the clouds all around, I felt… I felt like I was leaving Stable 181 all over again. Now, like then, I was crossing a barrier that I’d never passed, one that separated two worlds, just as that great gear-shaped door had once done. But unlike the Stable, this was a barrier that I could traverse at will, one that was not impenetrable as the door had been. Indeed, it was one that trapped all surface dwellers, making for them the roof of a cage. But for me, and others like me, with our defining physical trait that gave us the sole advantage we had over the other ponies of the wastes, it was something that could actually be reached and surpassed, something that could be touched, and even admired for the right reasons – for the Old World reasons.

It wasn’t repressing me, but rather, it was welcoming me… just as it had welcomed all pegasi before me.

And as the clouds ahead begun to glow, dimly at first, but growing rapidly brighter, the fear, the anger, the sadness… the guilt… all that I had felt in that dreadful moment when Saber had revealed Hopeville’s fate served not to crush me back down, but to drive me forward through the last few meters… before…

Brighter and brighter they glowed, the rays of yellow-orange sunlight finally reaching me where they managed to punch through the cover, only getting so far until they became trapped by the clouds. Then they began to take shape, forming up into wide pillars of light around which the clouds had begun to disintegrate, thinning out the higher I went. The light was replacing them, pure yellow-orange color becoming just as prominent as the hazy grey and white until the light itself begun to make a wall of its own ahead of me. And then it fused with the clouds altogether, making a single entity of nature that was bathed in evening color, far more beautiful than the murky grey that was all that could be seen from the wasteland.

Until altogether… the whole thing split apart before me… as I finally broke through the cloud ceiling…

Blue…

I saw blue… everywhere… a pure and unblemished canvas tinted only with the shades of the early evening. Everything stopped… everything… Just a couple yards above the top of the clouds, and I fell into a hover, righting myself in the air to level out with the flat surface of the ceiling. And in every direction, as far as I could see, the clouds stretched. It was smooth around me, all around for what must have been at the very least a half mile in every direction. But the farther out I looked, slack-jawed, the clouds begun to rise into rolling hills, dip into craters, and churn into slowly moving waves. Miles ahead in the north, they grew even puffier and climbed even higher up than the ceiling, like the ruined towers of Marefax reincarnated in the sky. To the south, behind me, the clouds remained generally flat, only rising in sections, and to only a slightly greater height even as the clouds surrounding them took on the shape of the waves I had seen closer to me, giving the whole area the look of several islands in the middle of a cloudy ocean. Then I turned to the east, where the clouds were darkening, rising up high like the great wall of a canyon in front of a backdrop of purple-grey sky; the white of the clouds there was in mid-transformation towards the darker purple of the incoming storm system.

And finally, I turned to the west, where the clouds lay flat to caress the sun.

The sun… Celestia’s beloved sun…

There it was, no longer dimmed by the clouds as it had always been from the wasteland below. Here, it hovered picture perfect in the open blue, a radiating orb of gentle heat and soothing light whose bottom just barely touched the horizon where the clouds met the sky. Here, I beheld the sun and the sky and the clouds as they had been seen by my ancestors in an era of peace. Here, the overwhelming beauty of all that I saw came charging in to meet what happened below. And though even the scene’s tremendous power could not push it away, it still created a numbing effect in me. Though aware of all that had just happened, how I felt… how I had fled to get away… the sight all around me begun to heal me; at the very least, it kept any more fresh tears from falling… and that was a blessing all on its own. Because all around me was something that I had never pictured existing in the wastes, something that I never imagined I would see… something that was in itself a whole new world, something that didn’t belong… so it felt. Instead of dust, gentle cloud wisps churned. Instead of dirt, the surface was the cloud itself. And instead of murky grey and purple… the sky was nothing but pure blue… one of the very few things in our world that the battles and the megaspells had not been able to kill on that fateful day. This… all of this… it was the Old World, a slice of it that existed out of sight and mind of the carcass that was all that remained of a once great land ruled by a once great civilization. And this was a place that held a powerful force within it – a calming wing that draped over me in welcome.

Finally closing my mouth, pursing my lips as I finally begun to move freely again, my eyes fell back upon the clouds just a short distance beneath me, where a new line of thought suddenly sparked to life. Back home… in my oldest home… I had come to learn that the different types of ponies possessed a different set of unique abilities, natural traits that set them apart from the others. While unicorns possessed a physical manifestation of magic in their ability to learn spellcraft, and earth ponies were typically stronger and had a natural talent for tending to the earth, pegasi could… well… become one with the sky and all its forces. There had been many times in 181 when I thought about a pegasi’s natural ability to stand and walk atop the clouds, to move them and shape them, and only once when in the wasteland, weeks ago. But seeing it here, so close… it was an instant curiosity, a distraction from everything else.

And it was one that I wanted.

With a stronger beat of my wings, I pulled out of my hover and rose a little higher, enough to set my attention on landing. But when I began to lower down, ready to test that ‘natural trait’ in me for the first time, I picked up a sound that pierced the light, steady passing of the wind. It was a snapping sound, like a bed sheet, but with a greater weight on it… and when it snapped again, my ears twitched at the sound of metal plates, clicking together as they shifted. And that’s when I saw the clouds as they exploded in my peripheral sight, parting as a figure shot through the top of the ceiling. I spun in the air to face it, watching as it came to a stop a few yards above to settle into a hover of its own… whereupon the sun reflected off steel plate armor.

And her head came down to look upon me, the sun glinting along the top of the shiny black visor.

“You again…” I quickly eased from my surprise at the sight of the familiar mare, only to let out a sigh as I turned away. “I should’ve figured that you’d follow me… seeing as how you’re the only one around here who can.” I couldn’t help close my eyes at that little… obvious remark. “Did Saber send you?”

“Everypony did.” the steel-clad pegasus elaborated in reply, gentle and sympathetic behind her helmet. “You might be able to avoid everypony on the ground by coming up here, Nova. But you can’t run from another pegasus.” I turned back to look into her visor, just as she gave a little shake of her head. “Sorry…”

“So… are you going to drag me back down to the surface, kicking and screaming?” I asked, an intentional edge in my voice. “Are you going to make me confront Saber and everypony else that’s crammed into that little building… make me pay for what I did?…… After all, I’m sure my friends told you why I left…”

“They did… or at least a shorter version of the full story, anyway.” she confirmed. “Gunny explained most of it when you were heading to the cloud ceiling. That way I could get some understanding of what happened before I tried to bring you back.”

“How thoughtful…”

“You know… I can sympathize with you. I saw the panic set in when you realized what happened to your group. And as little as it means coming from a stranger, I know what it’s like to be afraid to confront something. But… you still shouldn’t have flown off.” the steel mare pressed, calm as before despite my quickly souring mood. “Do you know how many times the others called for you to stop and come back? Didn’t you hear them?”

“I tried not to.” I answered, blunt as I turned away and looked down to the clouds just inches below me.

“The little colt, your brother – he’s probably scared to death down there right now, what with the way you snapped. He called after you the most out of all of them.” she explained. “But when you had gone out of earshot, Ivy had to try and comfort him… Nova, you need to get back to the surface, both for your sake and his.”

But I snapped my eyes back to her visor in defiance. “Did you not hear me down there?!” I demanded.

“Nova, I heard you!” she snapped back, not in anger, but only quickly to keep me from pressing ahead. “But you didn’t hear your friends.” In my head, I wanted to remind her what I had said back on the ground. I wanted to tell her again and again the real truth of the matter – that in the end, no matter how many times my friends tried to mask it, no matter how much they tried to pretend it wasn’t truth, I was the one who had just cost them their second home, a loss that had unquestionably shattered the hope that we had dared to nurture as we fought the wasteland to build Hopeville up from its ruined state. All that progress… all that effort… I had dashed it all with the push of a button.

And I wanted to nail that into this mare’s head, especially since it was her that had come up to find me… a total stranger trying to speak assurances…

But though my mouth came open to reply… those thoughts hung on the tip of my tongue… and stayed there…

“I can’t go back down there…” I said instead, finally ending the other mare’s wait. “I just can’t…”

“Nova, please-”

“I said I can’t!” I interrupted, grabbing her attention in a chokehold. “You said it yourself that the others told you what happened. And so you know that I was banished from Buckley, and even though Mother Shimmer never said it directly, I know for a fact that I’d be shot on sight if I even stepped close to the base again.” And with a sad shake of my head… I spoke the fear that hid itself in me… “I brought a fate on them that they never deserved… the same fate that I put on my own people… a-and… I can’t… face being cast away by the ponies I fought and struggled alongside in this fucked up world. I faced everything they faced and more… and…”

And having to hear them as they decided my fate, just as I had decided theirs… I didn’t want to go through that… I didn’t want to hear them say their verdict to cast me out into the wastes, to face whatever end I might meet… alone…

I didn’t want to lose them… Saber, my friends, all the others… my brother…

I’d lose everything… I’d actually… lose… everything

“They’re all I have left…” I said, unable to suppress a sad sniffle. “I don’t want to be banished by the ones that mean the most to me…”

Thankfully, the mare let a moment of silence proceed my reveal, a sign that showed to me that she had indeed listened. Stranger aside… with the both of us being up here as the only two souls above the clouds… and with everything she had done for me from her own free will… I had to admit that her presence, still mysterious as it had always been since our first meeting in Stable 184, was assuring. But when I brought my eyes back up to where she continued to hover, I found myself taken by surprise as she brought a steel hoof up to the right side of her armored neck. Then came a heavy click, an internal lock sliding free from its slot before the entire chin plate of her helmet fell free, swinging back and forth on a hinge connecting it to the end of the muzzle. And dipping her head, she reached the helmet with both her forehooves and removed it from its place.

When it came off, long hair fell free, cascading all at once along her now exposed neck and the back of her armor. A head of pale brown was revealed, her coat nearly sandy in color with just a gentle tint of gray mixed in, and her mane was night black that was mixed with stripes of clean light silver. On her face, however, was a rather surprising array of what looked to be markings. Done up in some sort of sapphire-blue paint, there was a number of different lines and slashes that I could see as she tossed her head to get her mane out of her eyes. Two slashes were drawn across her right eye, from the upper right to the lower left like a pair of scars. With them was a single gentle concave arch across her forehead, and finally, there were four smooth lines that began at her lower right cheek, passing under her chin, and ending at her left.

And clearing the hair from before her sight, brown eyes settled on me as the pegasus cradled her helmet against her chest. “That’s not how it’s going to happen.” she said, giving me the slightest of smiles as she looked me eye to eye for the first time.

“Ever since you rescued me and my brother from that prison, you’ve kept yourself hidden under that helmet.” I remarked after a pause. “Who are you… and why are you so intent on bringing me back down to the surface?”

“My name is Sierra.” the pegasus answered. “And I came here to help another pegasus.”

“But why?” I restated, more curious now than ever.

“For many reasons.” she said. “The Talons have waged war on my people for many months, just as they’ve reengaged your loved ones. They’ve sought to drive us to extinction in their quest to eliminate any possible threat to their city, and we’ve been fighting them back in a stalemate conflict for a long time. But apart from us sharing common enemies… in my home, we’re taught to fight for and alongside any and all who we see as peace seekers. There are factions who seek technology, like the Steel Rangers. There are others that seek land and resources and power over others, like the Black Blood Raiders and the First Anarchists. Then there are those who act when they see something that they feel might become a threat to them, like the Enclave and the Talon Legion. But my tribe – we see the southeast as something that’s far different from the rest. Challenger and the smaller settlements it nourishes are well known for their goals where I come from, for their aim to build and grow and seek out a lifestyle that is as close to the pre-war world’s ways as possible. They’ve demonstrated their intentions with their expansion, encouraging the development of villages, bringing in settlers from a multitude of backgrounds, all while respecting those different customs and giving them an equal opportunity to live away from danger. Heartland settlers, tribals from the north, Hoofington scavengers, any and all who can make the journey. They’re creating a cooperative network, a region where civilization can be reborn, a sanctuary to rebuild not just the lives of its inhabitants, but the foundations of the Old World itself. They’re making a nation.”

I gave a slow nod… the only thing I could give as I took in her words; there was truth in what she said.

“While my tribe has a wholly different lifestyle with wholly different roots, we’re still one of Challenger’s oldest allies, and we have been ever since the Talons’ first campaign against them ten years ago.” she continued. “Challenger is the first outside settlement we became tied with, and we helped them in their first war when they drove Hayward’s forces away. It’s the only place we know of so far to be working toward goals like these, but if and when we find others, we’re ready to provide whatever help we can to them without changing how we ourselves live.” With that, she gestured toward me with a nod. “And so, putting those things together, you know my intention when I found you. On the day I first saw you, I’d been in the southeast for six days tracking Talon outposts, monitoring their troop movements, killing off scouting parties, all that amongst a couple other things.” she continued. “I’d found you when you were brought to their Stable from out east. You were knocked out, carried in on the back of a griffin. In short, I waited for a day for the guards to change shifts, blasted my way in, and found you.”

“So…” Amidst my lingering darker thoughts, the curiosity brought by Sierra’s introducing herself was beginning to suppress the constriction of my anxiety… something I began to appreciate. “You say that you and your… tribe… you help ponies who you see as ‘peace seekers’.” She gave me a single nod as she listened. “But even with you being an ally to Challenger and sharing the same enemy, you had never seen me before. You never knew who I was or what my history was… so why take the risk to fight your way through a Stable just to find me and get me out of there?”

“You’re right.” Sierra replied. “I know virtually nothing about you. For all I knew, you could have been from the Enclave, fallen from the sky like more than a few wasteland pegasus ponies out there.” But then she looked to the clouds below us, as if seeing through them to study the surface world far below. “But then I saw your brother, Archer, then your friends out on that battlefield. Seeing all of that put the habitual suspicion I had behind me and replaced it with motivation to get you two out of there, to whatever safety we could find. Because I knew through all of that, that you were far better than anypony in the Enclave’s ranks could be. Nopony in the Enclave would have so many others risking their own lives to save them.”

I looked away, off to the north. “Oh…”

“And that brings me back to what I said before, Nova.” And I continued to listen, with a new inspirational spark coming alight in me as she continued to support me. “After everything that happened back there at that Stable, do you really, honestly believe that your friends would just stand idly by and have you cast out for something that the enemy strong-armed you into doing? I can see simply from how your friends are around you that you are far better than a mare who’d seek the means to end life simply because she wanted to.” She spoke with a new tone of encouragement now, and with just a smidge of amusement, I felt it brought about by her knowing that she now had my full attention. “Yes, I know that that doesn’t change anything. Yes, you did unlock those missiles. And yes, the Talons used them after you did. But when you’re left without a choice, because somepony else took that choice away from you, that makes you the prey, not the predator. And that means that nothing has changed about you. You’re still a good pony after all this. Your friends all know that, Captain Saber already knows that, and in minutes, everypony else in that radio station is going to know it. And deep down, I think you know it too. You just don’t want to believe it yet.”

“Yeah…” Goddesses… Archer had said something like that too…

“I can’t blame you for that.” Sierra replied, her voice strengthening; at the top of my vision, I could see her hovering in closer. “It was a terrible ordeal, one I would dread to go through myself. But you need to understand what I just said, and what your friends have been telling you from the beginning. Take that to heart, believe it yourself, and then show your friends and everypony else down there that you believe it.” By the time she had finished, she had brought herself down to hover right alongside me, matching my altitude to look me straight in the eye. “Do you think you can do that, pegasus?”

She pressed the question on me… making me utter a light sigh as I let my eyes fall closed. “I don’t know…” I answered, hesitant… uncertain. “There’s a lot of weight on me from all this… a lot that I just need to sit down and think over on my own.” Looking back to Sierra, I found a silent question in her eyes, one that I answered with, “It may be that… I just need to find my own way to believe what you’ve said. Maybe my friends believe that I’m the victim, and maybe all the others will… and… well, that would help put me at ease… But as for me believing your words… I don’t… not just yet…… I just need some time to think through it, with a clearer head and some more rational thought.”

From the way her mouth curled down in a slight frown, barely noticeable, but still there, I knew that that hadn’t been something she had hoped to hear. But to my appreciation, she let herself take a breath instead of leaping into retaliation, instead putting words that would’ve pressed the discussion onward behind her. “I understand. And I’m sure the others will too.” Sierra replied instead, giving a single nod of encouragement. “Now come on, Nova. As beautiful as it is up here, you can’t appreciate it properly with you being rattled by all of this.” With a single practiced motion, Sierra brought her helmet back over her head, sliding the edge along the back of her neck after a quick toss of her mane to collect her hair and stow it all back into its protective shell. And after a second of situating it to a comfortable fit, she brought a hoof up to the dangling chin plate and returned it to its proper place, locking it back into position to complete the helmet and returning her to the armored mare I knew from before. “Let’s get back down there and see the others. They’ll want to make sure you’re okay.”

Slow… but with a touch of fresh courage, I gave her an affirmative nod as her visor came back to look to me. And with just a faint smile, I begun to move again. “Alright.”

*** *** ***

Forgiveness.

Absolution.

Freedom from sin, from a mistake that had harmed others in any form, no matter the severity, no matter the intent… bestowed either by the affection of friends or the mercy of strangers.

It was a pardon, setting one free from guilt, from the weight of a choice that had wronged innocents… and just a few hours ago, I would have never believed that I would receive such a gift from the ponies now hunkered down in the old regional radio station. But from Saber, who had revealed my confession to the others, all while making me sit through the whole of his announcement… I had been forgiven.

The captain had been the first after my friends and my brother… and then others said the same. They had spoken out from the assembled crowd, a few voices amidst the general nodding and gentle whispering. There was Sergeant Madeline – Saber’s newest sergeant after the attack had claimed Dusty and one of the three others. Then there was Shore’s parents, and one of Gracie’s nursing assistants – the white and silver unicorn mare I had seen before… then little Melody and her parents… and all the foals I had cared for in my days as a simple foalsitter. Flash and Candice, and even little Chase and Juniper, the latter two of whom had both lost their fathers out here… even they had taken a moment to see me, joined by their widowed mothers. And all of them told me not to worry like I had done, but only to remember who the real enemies were, and to draw strength from my friends to surpass this heavy ordeal.

Draw strength from your friends… one of the Stable’s lessons… something I hadn’t thought about in a long time…

Despite all that had been said, despite the assurances and the sympathy I had received, I still remained a separate mind from their verdict in the end. Something in me just wouldn’t let it go… but the sincerity shown by each of them, in the way they spoke, in the way they made sure that I looked them in the eyes when they did… there was enough there to allow me to finally overcome that terrible fear, to allow me to join the others with a stable level of confidence and comfort. And with the demon that was my inner turmoil now at the very least…… appeased… I was able to think back on things with newfound clarity, and I was able to do so of my own free will.

But when that had finally settled, I was forced to push just a few extra steps, just a little bit further to complete one final task.

Though he had been surprisingly collected at the revelation of Hopeville’s fate, Blake had not fared well at all when I’d finally told him of Gracie’s death. Back in Stable 184, and even in Buckley, he had been eager to reunite with Grace again after seeing that she hadn’t been with the rest of us during our rescue. But my friends and I had kept our mouths shut at my request to keep silent… and to wait for an appropriate time. When I’d tried to break the news to him gently… evasively… he didn’t understand, puzzled at where she might be if not with us, in Hopeville, or with the survivors in the station; it was a feeble effort all on its own. But when I finally got the courage to say it straight, to say those two words as they were without restriction…

"She’s dead…"

On that night when we had been captured, Blake had not been outside to see what had happened. Far as I knew, he had remained in our custodial closet in the City Hall just like I’d told him, and so didn’t see the end. But when I told him, he wept like he had just seen her die for himself. I didn’t know how long he cried, but I remained outside with him through it all, even as the guards returned to their duties and the civilians to their families inside. I was grateful, however, that Gunny, Shore, Ivy, Raemor, and even Sierra remained outside while Blake let his belated tears fall freely against my chest. And it didn’t take long for some of us to join him. Shore… poor Shore… he cried first, only roughly swiping aside his reading glasses and letting them fall to the dirt before new tears came. Gunny was the one to comfort him, patting his back while he mourned once again. Then it had been my turn to let a couple more fall, provoked harshly by the crystal-clear recollection of Gracie’s end… an image that wouldn’t leave me for a long while yet. And through it all, even Ivy let herself shed a pair of her own tears where she had stayed close by Gunny and Shore. Outside of us, Raemor and Sierra maintained a respectful silence, staying nearby, but otherwise giving us our space to grieve together as we were – as close friends who had lost one of their own. In the end, by the time each of us recovered enough to speak and move again… I honestly felt that we hadn’t cried enough… or that at least I hadn’t. But altogether we grew tired of it, and one by one we went our own ways in our new home.

After our recovery, I had been given solitude by my friends at my request, and each of them had gone to help around the station, or simply rest. Gunny, along with Sierra, who had finally introduced herself to the others when we had finished, headed for the rooftop to participate in the watch detail. Shore had gone to reunite with his parents, to which I had been eternally grateful that the both of them had survived the Talons’ takeover of Hopeville. Ivy and Raemor both had headed into the station to rest on their own. And Blake, with an unfortunately great deal of persuading on my end, had joined up with his friends, every one of which immediately saw to comforting him through the grief that had been thrown onto his shoulders. Thus having the evening alone, I had soon found myself again traveling through my most recent timeline of events, looking at them instead in the perspectives of my friends and fellow survivors rather than my own. I had begun to mentally repeat what had been told to me, especially some of Sierra’s words that she had spoken above the cloud ceiling. And the more I reflected on them, the more I begun to set them like bricks into my thoughts, storing them and holding them close, the better to think deeper about why they really were truth… about why I really was the victim.

And even though I was still wounded by what I’d been put through, and I still couldn’t fully let that guilt go… the time I had gotten for myself had served me well.

Now night was beginning to fall, with steady, gentler flashes of lightning replacing the lost daylight and the first raindrops beginning to fall against my back. With all my equipment having been stashed inside the radio station to mark mine and Blake’s sleeping space in the crowded quarters, I laid alone and in relative comfort on the dirt close to the building’s south wall, watching as nighttime slowly took the wasteland over. Now, with nothing but the faded horizon before me, and only the softer voices of the guards on the rooftop to break the sound of the moderate breeze and soft steady thunder, I was beginning to move into a stage of relaxation that I hadn’t been able to reach before… not since before my capture. I was finally feeling better. I was alive, Blake was alive, Gunny and Shore and Ivy and Raemor… Sierra had been a saving grace and was now with us… and Captain Saber had managed to evacuate most everypony from Hopeville. Despite it all, we were still a group, still moving, still fighting… still struggling… but we were together.

Only one pony could have made this very moment more bearable…

Having all that time to think… it harshly reminded me just how much I missed Gracie… and I knew that even though Gunny and Shore had been spared some of what I’d seen and done… they felt the same either way…

“Nova.”

With just the slightest jolt I was pulled back into the physical world, called by the voice of one of the ponies I had just been thinking of. Gunny, armor and weapons and all, stood looking my way just a few paces to my left, by the corner of the station. “Hey, Gunny.” I greeted him, flashing him a small smile as I shifted on the dirt. “I thought you’d be staying on the roof.”

The big unicorn looked well enough, relaxed and focused; it seemed to me that his time on watch had seen similar use as my time on the ground. “I’m on break for a few minutes.” came his reply. “Sergeant Madeline and Sergeant Mobley gave me the time to check up on everypony, see how they’re all doing. You’re the last one before I head back up there.”

“I see.”

“You doing alright, Nova?” he asked.

“I’m doing better.” I replied, letting my smile slightly widen with an assuring touch as he made his way to my side. “This time I’ve had to myself has helped me out.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” my friend remarked back, likewise passing me a brief smile as he stopped beside me. “And you’re not… well, you know… anymore?”

Blaming myself… seeing myself as the villain…

No… and yes…

“I’m alright, Gunny, really.” I assured, passing the white lie onto him with ease, concealing it behind my smile and nod. “You know I wasn’t expecting understanding from anypony here… and you saw it on my face when they were proving me wrong. But hearing that I was forgiven from Saber, from you and the others, from the children… there was just something more comforting about it.” With a shrug, I added with just a slightly slowed pace, “Back in Buckley… everything was just so… muddled. Archer and Mother Shimmer… I just couldn’t get myself to accept forgiveness from ponies who had built up so much and… and guarded such precious treasures. What they preserved was so beautiful… it was more than just a material thing… and I just… exposed something untouched by the wasteland to what Buckley swore to protect it from.” A quick glance to my friend, and I saw him looking to me, ears perked up as he listened. “But here… we’re the same in everything we’ve done. Here, I’m a part of the group, and I always have been. That’s why it was far more reassuring, and I believe I’m forgiven now… at least by the ones that matter most to me.”

Well… at least it wasn’t all a lie…

“You’re right.” Gunny said, now looking ahead to the horizon. “You are a part of this group, and we all know how you always intend to do the right thing, and how you’ve done the right things in the past. Everypony here knows you far too well to believe you would’ve done anything the Talons had put you through willingly. And I’m glad you see that.” And then I felt a nudge against my neck, Gunny bumping his muzzle against me in a gentle assuring nudge, one that got me to restore my former smile. “You’re always going to be a part of this group.” he added, his own smile sustained. “You’ll always be one of us, just like I will, just like Shore will, just like Gra-”

His smile vanished in a blink, just as mine did when he caught himself midsentence, his eyes going wide in shock at his slip. But that fell away too, just as quickly, and my friend shut his eyes with a startlingly rough sigh. Quickly, I pulled myself up to my hooves, unable to keep my ears from pinning back as he bowed his head. And without second thought I hooked a foreleg over his neck to pull him into a hug, bringing his head against me and setting my chin over his mane in one quick move. But he only kept himself still for a quick moment before, with another huff, he backed away, forcing his way out of my hold and dragging me with him a short ways, nearly making me trip before I released him on my own to catch my balance.

With a hushed swear, Gunny headed back in the direction he had come, leaving me staring after him as I got my hooves solidly back on the ground. But just as I made to call for him, to get him to come back, he stopped himself, slowing down to a couple hesitant last steps before he finally came to a halt at the station’s corner. And there he remained, the sparse raindrops now growing in number as they fell around him, the breeze stirring his ashy mane with a stronger push, and the thunder continuing on in its resonant voice.

“Gunny…”

At my low call, he turned, looking over his shoulder to me; there was a tear making its way down his right cheek, barely visible, but glinting just enough to catch my eye.

“I’m going to kill her, Nova…”

Blossom…

“When I find her…”

To my growing dismay, he couldn’t even finish his thought… much as he didn’t need to. He only looked away again, giving a little shake of his head, but remaining in his place. Right away, I knew that while he hadn’t said it outright, he was waiting for my own input. Having brought up our dear friend’s unjust end, showing that it hadn’t left his thoughts either… I knew he wanted to hear me… how I felt; and we were of similar mind. “We'll find her, Gunny.” I corrected gently. “We are going to find her. And we’re going to make her pay for what happened.

The single eye that looked to me narrowed, slight as he took in my words. Whether in approval of my own claim… or in jealous guarding of his vow to personally hunt down a mare who he must have now considered his quarry… I saw a darkened glint in that eye, one that sent a ripple of worry through me. But that silent answer was all he gave me, that single gesture leaving me a response I couldn’t decipher as he turned away. “Shore broke down again as soon as he got inside the station… I saw him with his parents while they were trying to calm him down.” he finally spoke. “When you’d been captured, we had stayed long enough to see Gracie’s grave put up and her ashes buried. It took a lot of effort to get him away from there… and now that’s gone too.”

Goddesses… Shore…

“Seeing him just breaking down like that, not just once or even twice… but three times now… Blossom killed one of our friends and destroyed another… I’m not going to let her do the same to you or Ivy or Raemor…” He took one more tentative step forward. “So don’t deny me that, Nova…”

“Gunny.” And when he moved, I followed him, matching his second step for one of my own as I gently replied, “You don’t have to face her alone… We share the loss, so let’s find that justice together, too.”

But my friend only sighed… a sound that stabbed into me and left me looking after him in heartache. “I’m going to head back up to the roof.” he replied, dropping the unintended subject wholesale. “Blake sent me to find you, by the way. He wants you to come see him in the station when you’re done out here, something about wanting you to sing him to sleep like you did back in the Stable. Might be good for the both of you to revisit some of those old traditions of yours… considering what you two just went through.” One more time, he looked over his shoulder to me… this time with just a very faint smile touching his lips. “With what I’ve heard about your singing voice, I imagine it’d do you both a world of good.”

And without waiting for me, he faced front and headed back the way he came, disappearing around the building’s corner and once again leaving me alone… But really… with Gunny’s reminder… more like an encouragement… it was hard not to drop my initial urge to follow him, to force him to linger on the former subject just to make certain that I got him to understand me, to understand that Blossom’s betrayal had wounded all of us equally… equally because out here, Gunny and Shore and I were just as much a family as were real blood siblings.

And after the past few days… that was far truer now than it ever had been before. And I would make sure that the both of them understood that.

But for now… with the rain beginning to pick up as the incoming weather system begun to pass over us … and with myself more than exhausted… Gunny’s recommendation sounded like a very good plan…

And it was something that I’d mentioned to Blake at least once before, that I knew…

And so I would. Tonight, I would sing for him… just like I had done back home.

*** *** ***

“Go ahead, Nova.”

Dipping his head, the earth pony guard stepped away from the open double doors to let me pass through first, and with a small smile I accepted his gentlecoltly offer. In the lobby room, the survivors that were crammed in with each other were by and large asleep, with only a few shifting in their places as they sorted through their rations and equipment. To keep things organized, everypony here had been arranged in such a way as to make three total rows in which they were laying facing the same direction, thus making two thin but usable lanes connecting the exit to both doors leading further into the station. In this room, the table that I had seen before had been completely removed, broken down and pulled away to clear out the space for others to use. Similarly, the debris from what had been left from the old recording equipment had also been thrown out, all in all making a clean floor that was perfect for the present situation. In total, there was perhaps forty ponies sleeping here, and likely a few more in the smaller room divided by the door on the right side.

Heading instead to the left, where the wreck of a blasted out door had once rested before likewise being pitched, I proceeded into the next room to find a similar sight. Another three dozen or so lay in the same pattern as those in the room before, and like before, the broken down equipment and the rubble from the collapsed west wall of the room had been cleared out in its entirety. Again most everypony here was asleep, many of them families, couples, relatives, and friends, each of whom had taken a big enough section of the floor space to rest together as their own groups. Only a couple were awake, speaking in whispers back and forth to one another at the far end of the room to avoid waking anypony else. And straight ahead, in the station’s electrical room, were four others, two mares and two stallions only slightly chattier than the others.

Moving easily through the room, I passed the intact door on the right side and into the next. Being the most worn down of the station’s chambers, there were fewer ponies resting here, only around a dozen, and there was no pattern to their resting places. They had only sought to avoid being around the holes in the ceiling, especially now with the coming rain. And already, raindrops were falling through them to further dampen the heavily decayed floor below, a few even striking my back on my way past to the final door and the last room of the station. The control room, previously home to four terminals and an old tool cabinet, was also fully cleared out, minus the terminal linked to the station’s fallout shelter door. Here was the last of our survivors, another dozen and a half ponies laying in a disorganized cluster, most asleep like the others. But the pony I was looking for was not asleep, not yet. Laying close to the west wall, tucked in the corner between it and the stairway leading to the bomb shelter, was Blake; even from the other side of the room, I could see that he was growing tired. And close by him, likewise quiet, Ivy lay giving him a little more space, using her own weapons and armor as a divider between them. Despite their silence, they looked to be resting without any awkwardness between them… due largely in part to Blake’s fatigue. As soon as I found him, he let out a rather powerful yawn, then proceeding to shake his head in an attempt to stay awake long enough to hold out until my arrival.

Getting Blake to fall asleep with a song was going to be fairly easy tonight.

Moving into the room and working my way around the sleeping ponies, that opinion was reinforced when Blake let himself lay his head down on the floor to face the west wall, not even noticing me. Ivy however, found me with a curious glance to the door, giving me a small cautious smile as she gave a wave of a hoof to beckon me the rest of the way over. And at her prompting, a quick light jab with a hoof on his side, Blake raised his head back up, this time finding me just as I closed the rest of the distance between us. “Hi Nova.” he greeted, exhausted.

“Hey you.” Coming to a stop before him, I promptly lowered my head down to nuzzle along his cheek, a gesture he returned in kind despite his weariness. “You look like you’re getting tired.”

He gave only a little nod.

“How are you feeling, Nova?”

To my right, Ivy shifted in her place as she spoke to get my attention, keeping her small smile on when I looked her in the eye. And best I could, I matched it for one of my own when I replied, “Better. Now that I’m back among friends and allies… I feel a little better.”

“I hear you.” Ivy concurred. “Though Hopeville might be gone… we’re still together. Saber got a lot of ponies out of town alive, and we’re still a group, losses aside. And well… that has to count for a little something in this mess, right?”

It seemed my friends were all of the same mind.

“Everypony here, everypony we have left – each and every one of them makes a reason for us to come back from this and keep fighting.” I answered. “We’ve weathered this once before… and while we don’t deserve to, I know that we can do it again. And we will.”

Slowly, Ivy nodded her approval at my words, letting her smile widen slightly when she replied back, “I like that attitude. It’s good to see you in at least slightly better spirits.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, too.” Blake chimed in, putting in effort to give me a little smile when I turned to him; bless his brave soul.

“So am I, little brother.” I replied, leaning in to give him a light peck on the forehead. “Now, I heard from Gunny that you wanted me to sing you a song tonight.”

And right away he nodded. “Can you? I would really like you to sing.”

“You don’t have to ask me, Blake.” I assured him, stepping around in front of him and to my designated spot between him and the wall. “I’ll sing for you whenever you want me to.” Goddesses, seeing my baby brother brighten… just a little despite the ordeals he’d been put through… “Now come on. Let’s get you tucked in, and then I’ll sing something for you.”

With Ivy’s gear being used as a divider between us and her, my own equipment had simply been tucked against the wall, just in front of me so that I could reach it at will if and when I needed to. My police armor made a blanket for my saddle and the Torch to sit on, and atop the trio of rifles were my saddlebags, light enough so as to be able to sit at the top of the pile without weighing down on my weaponry. And off the stack, leaning against my armor, was the single saddlebag containing Mother Shimmer's gifts… picked up by Gunny because of my unwillingness to do so myself… brought home anyway despite my lack of desire to bring them back; I hadn’t touched that bag again since after that final morning in Buckley.

After situating myself in my sleeping space, I reached for the bags and nudged open the left-side pack to find Blake and I’s blanket, and taking the corner between my teeth, I pulled with a quick tug for it to slide easily from the bag and out onto the floor. Thankfully, despite the long period without use, during which it had only been folded up to collect dust, the white blanket was largely clean. The saddlebag had done its part in keeping the majority of the outside’s dirt from getting to it, with only a couple thin sections having accumulated just a little bit of it to make light stains; either way, I didn’t really care how clean it was.

Stepping back into my space, I threw the blanket over Blake with a single practiced toss of my head. It settled over his back on the first try… briefly leaving his newly acquired cutie mark for me to see until I pulled back the end of the blanket to cover it… and with a few quick adjustments, I had my little brother tucked in and ready for a night of catching up on sleep. “What about you, Nova?” he piped up, craning his head around as I finished smoothing the blanket out over his shoulders. “Don’t you want to be under the blanket too?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, Blake.” I assured, giving him a little smile. “I’m going to fall asleep just fine tonight. I’m sure of it.” And with one final check, I declared my baby brother fully situated and finally let myself lay down, lowering slowly down onto my belly and falling easily into a comfortable position. “Are you comfy?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” And finally settling on the floor, I stretched out my left wing and let it fall gently over my baby brother’s back, making the second and final blanket that would be resting over him. “Now, how about that song?” And sliding over, Blake showed me his readiness as he snuggled up against my side, looking hopefully into my eyes; seeing those eyes… I knew that this was definitely something he not only wanted, but needed as well… especially now that he had come to sanctuary, to finally be back among his friends and allies.

And now it was thinking time… and Goddesses, did I need to think.

I needed to think back to the past, the far past, back to when I was but a filly in my early Stable days… back all the way to when Blake was but a newborn. And the first thing I remembered was how excited I was as a child to know that I was going to be a sister, and not just that, but a big sister. When mother’s belly had grown to a certain roundness, I had eventually raised the question myself, to which my father, having kept it a surprise, answered with the revelation. Mom was going to have a second baby, and dad finally let his anticipation be known to me, a contagious force as he prepared our family for its fourth member. With some time passing by, there eventually came a point where most every night, I would lay with mom in our living room and rest my head against her belly to listen, to feel for a little kick, and to smile whenever I did. Time and time again we did this together, mother and daughter, and the closer the due date, the more active Blake would become, and I would feel a nudge almost every day. Mother always said that it was because he recognized me when I listened for him, because it was mother that had told him who I was, and also who I would be to him when he emerged into the Stable. Blake knew even before birth who I was, who all of us were, and who we would be – who would be the mother, the father, and the sister. And there were those times when I would speak to him, when I would tell him how excited I was for the day when I’d finally see him, when I would tell him that I would be the best sister in the whole world. Day by day I would tell Blake what was going on in the world around him, what was happening to me – when I would get a good grade in a class or get a new book to read, or when I’d hurt myself during flying practice. I’d tell him when the Stable saw an improvement or modification in its facilities, or when somepony told an interesting story from a journey on the surface… or even when One Eighty-one lost another member to natural causes, a friend passing away from old age.

I’d tell him everything. And it was in those times, those sacred moments when we were together, that mother would sing to us.

Though she was no professional, mother’s voice was a thing of beauty, of comfort, a vessel of the unbreakable love for us that she always carried. No matter the time, good or bad, and no matter the song – when she sang, she brought me into a place that could truly never be touched by the dark forces of the world, no matter how strong they might have been. It was her way of shielding me without magic, her way of enveloping me without wings. Her voice was her soul that I loved as her daughter, and it was her heart that loved me equally in return. Her voice brought us together… and despite the weeks gone by… I remembered that voice even now, its healing tone and guiding light.

And here and now, with Blake by my side… I had to make that voice my own… I had to have mother’s voice for him… and I had to sing one of mother’s songs for him…

And I knew which one to sing this night.

As soon as I recalled its name, it came together in my head like clockwork. I remembered it right down to its melody, its phrases, the instrumentation and the voices, and how mother had sung it to us. From its original form as a recorded song stored away in the Stable’s Hall of Records it came to my ears on my mother’s lips, and with a starting inhale I zeroed in on the first pitch, letting myself hum it as quietly but as clearly as I could to prepare myself for the song. With private satisfaction, I brought out the first pitch with clarity, and I sustained it as I adjusted myself in my place at Blake’s side. He watched me still, now listening as I held the first drone, and with myself now feeling confident enough to begin, I let the drone fall away to take another breath. And then I joined with my memory of the song, bringing the past to the present..

Though the opening phrase was sung, both by the female soloist as well as the male backups all in unison, I hummed the solo line instead, playing the lyrics only in my head while maintaining the soft but clear tone of voice that I’d began with. The opening phrase then repeated itself once, different lyrics but same music. And at the repeat I focused on the memory of the instruments to guide my recreation of the song, letting it shape the melody in my hum until it came to a close. Then I was humming an instrumental bridge, the arpeggios in the keyboard that played a haunting phrase of their own to compliment the vocal introduction before it. And like the opening, it repeated itself once, stating itself again to emphasize the calm nature of the piece. As it progressed, I changed the voice that I copied, humming instead the melody of the flute that I remembered coming in over the constant broken chords, providing a simple but elegant figure of equal importance. Together the two of them created the atmosphere I needed, and even though I could only hum one voice at a time, it provided the springboard for the return of the soloist.

And then I sang my first words.

“Hush.” I whispered to Blake, leaning in. “Lay down your troubled mind.” And closing my eyes, I let myself fall into the music, focusing on the memories… painting the picture. “The day,” I gently sang. “has vanished and left us behind.” And in the break, I hummed the continuous accompaniment of the keyboard. “And the wind,” I continued. “whispering soft lullabies,” Leaning down further, I let myself nuzzle along the back of Blake’s neck, a delicate touch. “will soothe, so close your weary eyes.” And already, I could feel Blake as he begun to relax under my protective wing, already slipping away under the hold of my voice. “Let your arms enfold us,” I let my voice strengthen just slightly as the music intensified. “through the dark of night. Will your angels hold us, till we see the light?”

Now the vocal line went silent, and the instruments from before took over once again, likewise strengthening as they played out their melody. Here, as I resumed my humming, I was beginning to picture more than the song itself. I could see a room now, a stage, one that I stood upon as I sang to my audience of one. And that one dear soul – he was entering a state of peace, a place that sheltered him, warmed him, kept him close. It was a place that mother had built so many times before me… and I was building that here… I was actually building that here.

“Sleep.” I whispered to Blake, leaning back. “Angels will watch over you.” Now Blake’s breathing was lessened to its gentlest state, his body now moving only in a slow rise and fall underwing. “And soon,” Softer, I sang the next line. “beautiful dreams will come true.” And again, I picked up the accompaniment in the brief pause. “Can you feel, spirits embracing your soul?” I continued, copying the vocal embellishments of the solo. “So dream, while secrets of darkness unfold.” And trapped in the song as I was, I knew already that Blake had slipped away into slumber. “Let your arms enfold us,” Again I let my voice grow stronger. “through the dark of night. Will your angels hold us, till we see the light?” And soft but strong, I let myself sing out. “Let your arms enfold us,” I repeated. “through the dark of night. Will your angels hold us, till we see the light?” And with that, the instruments returned for a final time, brought to life as I closed my lips to hum their last phrase. I picked up the violin that I remembered from long ago, and though its melody repeated, I let it carry out each time. It was simple but flowing, and sharing in Blake’s comfort I hummed out each note belonging to that instrument, giving them equal importance and beauty just as the song did, just as mother did. Until at last it repeated one final time, the rest of the instruments playing their final notes and holding them before the violin did the same, before I did the same.

And after a couple seconds, I let my last pitch fade away, falling into silence once more.

With a soft, satisfied exhale, I opened my eyes as I returned to the real world from my memory. And sure enough, when I looked down to see him, there Blake was, fast asleep. And with just a small tired smile I spoke a silent thank you, leaning down to give my baby brother a final kiss goodnight. “Sleep well, baby brother.” I whispered, brushing my muzzle along his mane. “I love you.”

Despite everything that had happened to me, despite all my own fears and doubts… Blake had been hit much harder than me. Ordeal after ordeal, he had been subjected to what was simultaneously the most horrifying and crushing four days of his life, falling right in with our very first day on the surface. With the loss of our parents on his shoulders still, his abduction and imprisonment had seen him alone and terrified in unknown territory. And through those three days he had never been able to know whether he would live or die. Each approaching second had been another chance that the Talons would… pull the plug… and crammed in a small room, surrounded by the members of a hostile and merciless faction, he waited those three days with that constant fear in him, the fear of his death and mine as well. For three days, he couldn’t see if I had survived the Talons attack on our now lost home. And for all he knew, he had been the only one to survive it… for all he knew, I could’ve died just like mom and dad… and he could’ve truly been alone…

And that was something that I felt was Blake’s greatest fear, whether he showed it outwardly or not.

And then he saw me when I had finally woken up, likewise shackled and chained. But something that would have been a cause for relief had been brutally twisted when the Talons strapped him with their explosive collar. Relief instead became the real true fear of death, brought by the knowing that at one fatal slip from me, he would actually die… and the Talons didn’t care. Even after, when I’d become a legionnaire to save him, Blake was forced to watch the chaotic battle that followed, the battle that had been focused solely on me. And I knew that he had seen all that I had seen then – the bodies of the fallen enemies… some of them my own kills. He had seen me kill, seen others kill, all in rapid succession. One after the next the body count rose up, and between Sierra and I… we had killed many to get Blake out alive.

And finally came Buckley. Short on time and preparations, he had been forced to remain inside the armored shell of Lily, and as such, he rode into battle with her crew. He shared the battlefield with them, shared the fight, and had nearly died when Lily had been attacked. But then came the worst of it all… Blake’s first kill, just one shot, and one life that he had taken. His first kill, and still he was just a child… and he had been rewarded for it. His blue flame, like my own and like our father’s before us, the representation of his special talent, his identity… what made him who he was. And it had been discovered by taking a life.

And with Gracie’s death making the final weight that was set upon him…… he had been through far too much… and though there was nothing about it that I could change… it weighed heavily on me all the same.

My smile had faded through the passing of those thoughts, and blinking, I looked back down to take another glance at Blake… still sleeping soundly. And seeing him there at rest, at peace, and knowing that despite his trials, I had helped him reach this moment… it gave me just a little bit of hope, and fresh determination. In the end, he and I were still together, still alive through it all, just like Ivy had said… just like I had said. Though battered and worn, scarred and exhausted, we had made it together… and that was enough for me take heart, to close my eyes and make a promise, here and now.

For Blake, I would make things better. For him, I would recover and I would rise. And for him, I would find a way to give him back the life of peace that he once had. I would do this, no matter what enemies sought our end, no matter the walls that barred us, no matter how the wasteland would speak… no matter what. And though nothing in our lives was assured, especially now… my promise was the one thing that would be.

And like that foalhood promise that my friends and I had made all those years ago, I silently spoke that ironclad vow.

“I’ll always be there, Blake… to protect, to nurture, to teach and inspire… I’ll always be there. And if nothing else in life is assured, then this promise can be the one thing that is.”

“I’ll always be there.”



Footnote: Level Up!!

New Perk: The Last Thing You Never See - Different situations call for different tactics, and the battles you have fought thus far have honed your precision behind a firearm. Your chance to hit an opponent’s head, both in and out of S.A.T.S., is increased by 25% when using any weapon equipped with a scope.

Skill Notes:

Speech (75)
Small Guns (100)