Try to enjoy the night with the rest of the Gang: 9 Votes
Kestrel emerged from the doorway to the kitchen, the smell of the cooking stew behind her replaced with the smell of burning logs and tobacco smoke as the Gang arranged themselves around the campfire in the middle of the abandoned settlement. Nopony said anything, each pony’s eyes drawn toward the flickering flame settled between them all, and occasionally taking a sip of whiskey or a puff of tobacco as the sun went down and the nighttime insects gradually came out to sing. Kestrel considered going off to the side or down to the river to stew in her own thoughts, but ultimately decided against it. If the rest of the Gang’s days were about to dwindle into dark nights like this one, she at least wanted to have one last fond memory of everypony she’d called her family over the years to dwell on as her candle was snuffed out.
So instead, the gunslinger grabbed a bottle of whiskey, pulled a cigarette from her pocket, and lit it with a match struck off of her shoe. With nicotine and alcohol held in her feathers, the mare made her way over to the fire and sat down on an unoccupied spot of dry ground next to Silver. The younger pegasus gave her a look and a small smile, and Kestrel offered her her bottle of whiskey to take a sip from. Silver graciously took it, took a sip, grimaced at the strong liquor for a moment, then passed it back—though not before an almost smothered cough managed to squeeze out of her throat.
That little harmless noise seemed to break the spell of silence over the camp, and Roughshod snorted in amusement. “What’s a matter, Silvie? I thought you was developin’ a taste for hard liquor lately.”
“My nose is stuffed and my throat is raw,” Silver protested, frowning at the earth pony. “Makes the burn all the worse!”
“I ain’t never seen a cold that likes strong whiskey,” Kestrel said. “That’s just it fightin’ back as you drown it away.”
“If it could drown a little quicker I’d ‘preciate that a whole bunch.” Then Silver stuck her tongue out at Roughshod. “Sides, how’d you like it if you caught what I got?”
Roughshod guffawed. “I don’t get sick,” he retorted. “Got that good earth pony resiliency. You pegasi, on the other hoof, you’re all soft and light. And fluffy. It ain’t no surprise that you got it bad, specially down here in the bayou.”
“It ain’t been pleasant,” Kestrel admitted. She’d been sweating far more than she would have liked too since they made it down to New Oatleans, even during the nighttime. “Pegasi are built for the cold sky. Not here. You wave a towel around for a few minutes, I bet you could wring a glass of water outta it. It’s like breathin’ in warm soup all day.”
Snapshot leaned forward to contribute a rare word to the conversation. “Hopefully you don’t take us somewhere cold when we’re out of Equestria,” he said, and his face picked up the faintest curves of a disgusted frown. “Always hated winter. At least that was one of the good things about fighting the griffons. The Confederacy is warm and dry.”
“I always thought we was gonna go someplace tropical,” Silver said. “Someplace with white beaches and fluffy white clouds in a deep blue sky.”
Miss Irons shook her head. “Now you’re thinking like a tourist, sweetie.”
“Ain’t that what we’re gonna be when we’re outta Equestria?” Kestrel asked. She took a sip of whiskey and cleared her throat. “We gonna be someplace far away, ain’t never gonna see Equestria again. Might as well live someplace beautiful. Make what time we got left worth it. After all, there ain’t gonna be no more scores, no more robberies, no more killin’…”
Tumbleweed, who had been quiet up until this point, grunted and leaned forward, blowing a cloud of cigar smoke out from between his lips. “A new life,” he said. “And one most of us ain’t ever had the good fortune of livin’ for ourselves. Can y’all imagine that? Imagine that. Kessie’s right; we ain’t gonna need to carry our guns round no more. Ain’t gotta worry ‘bout hidin’ our faces or our names. It’s all gonna be so… plain. Plain and simple.”
The Gang nodded along and, one by one, their eyes returned to the fire, as if they could see their future in the shifting orange and yellow of the flames. Kestrel wasn’t sure what the flames were showing her; were those the golden rays of a cheerful summer sun, or the burning fires of a sinking ship? Did she have a future at all? Or were those just her ashes, scattered in an unmarked grave someplace where ponies would never find them?
“When I’m out of Equestria, I wanna be a fishermare,” Silver said, her eyes pulling up from the fire and momentarily drifting across the group. “I wanna have a boat that I can go sail off the coast of our island. And I’ll read books and drink under the tropical sun, and then for dinner everynight, I’ll have whatever I caught that day. Fresher than any market anywhere in Equestria.”
Miss Irons made a face at that. “You pegasi and fish,” she remarked. “You’re almost griffons at that point.”
“It’s good in protein!” Silver protested. “We need that when we spend so much time flyin’ around!”
Roughshod, meanwhile, only laughed. “You, a fisherpony? We gonna be outta Equestria livin’ free, and you wanna be a simple fishermare?”
Silver frowned back at him. “Oh yeah? What about you? What’re you gonna do when we’re outta Equestria?”
“Drink myself to death, probably,” Roughshod said with a snort. “I’m gonna find some tiki cabana and spend the rest of my days there. I’ll drink coconut rum and have as many of the mares that’ll have me, and I’ll drink and rut til my heart don’t beat no more.”
Silver stuck her tongue out and made a gagging noise, but Kestrel snickered and covered her muzzle with a wing. “You’re gonna be outta bits in a month for what it’ll take to get a mare in bed with you. You’ll be back at a life of crime in no time.”
“Ah, it ain’t so bad. Worst comes to worst, I’ll get some of my old pals from the army, and we’ll get ourselves killed bein’ mercenaries in the Confederacy.” Roughshod took a deep swig of beer and belched loudly, only adding, “Damn catbirds always need somecreature to do their fightin’ for ‘em. Seen it enough in the army to know that they ain’t professional like we was.”
The topic Silvie had steered them toward seemed to be a popular one, as next Miss Irons chimed in. “I’ve lived a long and storied life,” she said. “A difficult one, to be sure. I don’t know how much longer I’ve got left, but so long as I can kick my hooves up and let somepony else do all the cooking and cleaning, then I’ll die a happy mare.”
“I’m going to sail around the world,” Snapshot announced, earning raised eyebrows from everypony present. “I saw one country across an ocean while I was in the army. I couldn’t enjoy it much on account of the war and the killing. I’d like to see it again with less bloodshed. And maybe others, too.”
Tumbleweed was quiet as eyes turned toward him. The end of his cigar glowed orange in the twilight darkness, and he held the smoke in his mouth as he thought. “I don’t rightly know,” he admitted. “But I always enjoyed talkin’ with folks, even if usually it’s to trick ‘em into gettin’ us what we want. Maybe I can start some kinda hospitality industry on whatever corner of the globe we end up at. Get gawkin’ tourists to go and surrender some bits by spinnin’ ‘em a tale, rather than threatenin’ ‘em at the end of a gun.”
“Least you’d be good at it,” Silver remarked.
“Oh, I know.”
The Gang chuckled lightly, a sentiment that was only redoubled when Gizmo helpfully chimed in from the edge of the circle. “As a machine, I have no ambitions,” she stated in her tinny voice. “In case anypony was about to ask. I am built to serve.”
“You might as well take the robot along with you, Boss,” Kestrel chided. “She’d make a great attraction to gawk at.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Tumbleweed said, earning a few more snickers from the Gang. “She can make drinks for the guests.”
Then Kestrel realized that she was the last one to speak, and she only shrugged. “I ain’t put much thought into it,” she said. “Been puttin’ too much thought on even gettin’ to that point to think ‘bout what I’d do if I ever got there.”
“Oh, come on, Kessie!” Silver prodded. “You gotta have somethin’ you always enjoyed doin’.”
“’Sides drinkin’, of course,” Roughshod said with a smirk. “Though if you want you can join me. Try to keep up.”
The challenge got a few chuckles out of the Gang, but Kestrel finally settled on an answer. “Maybe I’ll try my hoof at becomin’ an artist or somethin’,” the gunslinger said. “I enjoy sketchin’ from time to time. Guess I’ll have plenty of time to dedicate to gettin’ better once we’re outta here for good.”
“That’s the spirit!” Silver exclaimed, and she flitted open her left wing to bat against Kestrel’s right. “I bet you’d make a great artist, Kessie. You always got the patience for that sorta thing.”
“Well I dunno ‘bout that,” Kestrel said with a roll of her eyes and a drag of her cigarette. She let the smoke out through her nose and chuckled. “But I guess when we’re home free I ain’t gotta worry ‘bout gettin’ somewhere fast as I can no more.”
“It’d be ‘bout as good as it gets,” Tumbleweed agreed. “But for now, we gotta work hard to get there, everypony. It ain’t gonna happen if we don’t make it happen. So tonight, let’s forget ‘bout all our worries, and look toward the future. It’ll be the last chance we get for a while.”
“Now that’s somethin’ I can agree to!” Roughshod cheered, raising his bottle, and the rest of the Gang did the same. “Now, you think that stew’s done yet? I could really use somethin’ to eat to go with this beer!”
His words were met with a chorus of agreements, and soon Miss Irons and Gizmo departed to go get bowls for everypony. Tumbleweed pulled out his cards, Silver surprised everypony by digging out Wanderer’s guitar and striking a few chords on it, and for the first time in Kestrel didn’t know how long, she smiled and relaxed, just taking it all in.
[NO POLL FOR THIS CHAPTER]