//------------------------------//
// An Old Mare's Tale 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Legends from the Wasteland 
// by PeskyJewel 
//------------------------------//

Fallout Equestria: Legends from the Wasteland
An Old Mare's Tale
By: PeskyJewel

A mare sat next to a fire in an old snow covered home, lights flickered softly in the various other houses in the small town. Fillies and colts gathered around the old mare and the fire as she spoke to them, her voice grating in the young night. "Wark stood above his people on the tallest hill in the fields of tents."
The little foals looked on in excitement as they imagined the scenes the old mare spoke of. She continued, "The tents rested on the ancient battlefield for challenges and duels and, in a cave below Wark's hooves, the birthplace of the yaks. He looked out and saw yaks, from all thirteen clans, looking up at him, their leader, waiting for him to deliver their salvation. Wark remembered back to where this all started. His banishment, and his wanderings off into the Northern Ice Fields. If you remember, he expected to die, but he found a mad old yak in a large wooden boat stuck into the ice. The old yak had told Wark about a great freeze that would cover the thirteen tribes in impenetrable ice. Wark was told that the gods had imbued him with great power, and that he would unite and save the yaks."
One of the foals interrupted the old mare, "But if he saved the yaks, where are they all?"
The old mare smiled at the foal. "Well dear, if you remember, this happened a very long time. Long before ponies had even met the yaks. Now, no more interruptions until the stories over."
All the foals nodded and the old mare continued, "With this knowledge, Wark returned to the yaks and united the clans. And now, there he stood, looking out at the yaks as they begged for him to save them. Wark reached out and pleaded with his gods for help in this great endevour. He summoned the power he had and grabbed the rock below his hooves, pulling with all his strength and all his might. And as the Yaks watched him, the stone beneath him began to rise. Slowly, Wark raised the great plateaus from the ground. All around their lands, the yaks watched these massive rocks climb into the sky, and once their leader was done, they ascended the plateaus and built stone fortresses on them. And in them, they were safe when the Ice came and engulfed the land around them."
The little foals gasped in wonder and astonishment as they thought of so much ice, but the old mare continued on. "And now, we call those fortresses Bulwarks after the great Yak bull named Wark, who raised them from the earth."
The old mare pointed out an old broken window to a stone fortress that sat on a plateau around a ruined city, the moon shining brightly above it. "And ponies still say today, that those Bulwarks will come to be the salvation of the yaks during the end of the world."
The foals looked off in wonder. "Miss Blizzard? If the Bulwarks are going to save the yaks, then why aren't there any yaks?"
The mare smiled back at the foal and patted him on the head with her wing. "That's just the thing my dear. Nopony knows where the yaks have gone, but the world hasn't ended yet. So who knows, they may still be out there."
One of the colts stood up confidently. "Then I'm going to find them!" He proclaimed boldly.
The old mare chuckled. "Maybe you will dear, but I suggest you all run back home, you aren't supposed to be out this late."
All the foals ran out of the old house playing with eachother, chatting excitedly about yaks, kings, magic powers, and fortresses.