Prologue: The Structure of a Virtue
If there’s one thing that I have learned in my life, it’s that a pony’s virtues are constantly tested. Life in the Stable could never fully prepare us for that. It didn’t know what life was like up there on the surface… and neither did we. Instead, the family line of Overmares and Overstallions did their best to give us an advantage, just in case the time ever came where we needed to live outside in post-war Equestria. The Stable taught us the names and the characteristics of the virtues that were held dear in the old world. As a filly, I was taught about kindness, laughter, generosity, honesty, loyalty, and magic. All of these were virtues of pre-war ponies, all of these were elements. My teacher called them the Elements of Harmony and these were the foundations of life in Stable 181. I liked the idea, and I liked it for several reasons. Everypony in the Stable developed a strong sense of what was right and wrong, and everypony knew how to live together in peace, to make a life of good intent, a life of honor.
Honor. It was a word that I had only heard three times while I grew up in that Stable. I heard it once from my father when my little brother was born. He was boasting about how proud he was to be the father of not one, but two young ponies, and he told myself and my baby brother of the faith he had in us that we would become honorable ponies one day. Seeing my father that happy is an image that I haven’t forgotten since I first saw it... his strong and caring embrace, his loving eyes, looking down upon the two of us as if we were the greatest treasures to enter his life.
The second time I had heard the word honor was from my mother when she told me that an honorable mare was passionate, intelligent, friendly, helpful, caring, and willing and unafraid to stand up for who and what she loved. She told me this just before I became a grown-up, a mare, and her words of wisdom played out their part to reinforce my appreciation of the Elements of Harmony. She had said that she was so proud of her “little filly” who was taking up her studying so seriously, living life under the Elements of Harmony, just as we were taught to do.
The last time I heard that word in Stable 181 was the last day the Stable existed. A pony I had not really come to know, other than the fact that he was a security stallion as well as a stallion that had shared a makeshift medical clinic with myself and several others, had told me about how to honor something… just certain things. He said that some things are best left behind. Some things can be left to history while others should be forgotten entirely, put to rest. I never fully understood it, or so I thought, but the praise and love of my parents, coupled by the wisdom of those that taught me within the Stable, were the protection of my virtues when I stepped hoof into the wasteland for the first time.
I know a lot about the wasteland, how it welcomes new ponies with bared fangs, an ever-grinning maw ready to feast upon anything and everything that is good within a pony, only to spit that pony back out and leave a dark vessel, a pony who is corrupted and made to steal, murder, lie, and become wholly evil. There were many like that, and not just ponies who turned to the raider’s way of life. There were ponies in settlements too, seeking power with utter disregard for the well-being of others, often choosing to sacrifice others in their pursuits; there was a constant struggle between good (or what was left of it), and evil. Make no mistake, a lot of ponies tried to be the good ponies, and they were good. My friends and I, we met decent folk out there, trying to survive in post-war Equestria and make a living out of what they had. Everypony was tested, some passing the wasteland’s tests and besting its cruelty. And others failed, becoming just another victim of the wasteland, another statistic. We were no exemption from the wasteland’s challenges. I was tested, my friends were tested, all while we sought to get a foothold in the new Equestria and rebuild our lives. We experienced trials, triumphs, and failures all the same and I am proud to say that none of my friends broke and bowed to the vices of the wasteland. I still cannot say the same for myself, even after my road had ended and I was allowed to be at peace for however long a time that would be, long or brief.
The Wasteland has a unique way of helping you forge your virtue, and if you play your cards right, tread your road carefully, it might just turn out to shape something good for you and for all those ponies you desire to help. Even if the wasteland beats you down again and again, there is always a chance for the desire to do good to overpower the malice of the wasteland’s influence. I made the decisions I made because I thought they were ultimately the best decisions to carry out. My virtues were tested, strained… I made mistakes… plenty of them… but I still want to say that I hung on, even if barely. There’s a lot to think about when the decisions you make lead to annihilation. And it wasn’t the destruction of just some nameless thing that nopony would ever think about… well… perhaps in a way it was, but only to them. To me, as much as I didn’t want to believe it at first, I destroyed something that was mine. In a sense, I was related to what I destroyed, and to the destruction I brought. What I did still lingers in my mind, and I ponder it from time to time. I think about the influences that accompanied me on my road: the teachings within the Stable, the friends I had lived with all my life and loved, the old world secret I uncovered and the threat that it posed to Equestria. I think about just how far the ripples of my decisions might go into the future. Perhaps very far, perhaps not far at all. But that is probably the hardest thought to put an answer to. Maybe I’ll just let you decide. My name is Nova, I am a Pegasus, and this is my story showing just how much old world histories can persist and find meaning in the present and how honor is not just a virtue. This is a story explaining how honor is a code, a code of words, oaths, decisions, and virtues, constantly changing, shifting, and constructed by the very fabric of the heart and soul of the dedicated pony who seeks to live by it.