“For the first few days after he woke up, he had the town on pins and needles.” Princess Zena confessed to the former postmaster. “It was weird, introducing yourself to somepony over and over again. I helped him get back where he could shoot, I took him with me on patrols. And the next day he’d just come back like Doc had just let him loose.”
“Don’t imagine his drinkin’ helped matters.” The old nag on the bar stool snickered. “Still, humor an old nag, why did you follow him up here? Why’d he put you in charge? I figured if he ever made it back he’d shoot me in the head, or just walk away. I was the Post Master. I stretched us too thin, I led the Marejave Express to it’s doom.”
“Hell if I know, why the hell are you asking me?” The zony took a long drag from a short bottle. ”I was just a volunteer guard back in Good Springs. He was just a simple old stallion who just wanted to help.”
“Old, maybe?” The elderly courier wheezed a laugh. “Simple? Princess, Six plays dumb well enough. He plays lots a things. He plays dumb. He plays wastelander. He plays the odds. Honestly I thought he was playin’ you. Six gets romantic notions sometimes…”
“Ewww! Don’t make it out like that!” Princess snarled. “Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s flirting up that little robot. Not judging, but also ‘ewww’.”
“Yeah, ya got me there… that’s kinda weird.” The former Postmaster nodded. “When Courier Number Five refused his drawn lot for the New Pegasus run, he passed it up the line to Six. Along with that robot, ‘if’ Six came back from this run. Looking back, he knew exactly what was going to happen.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Princess shuffled her hooves.
“Because your the Post Master now, Courier Number 33.” She snickered a little, mostly to herself. “You hold the reins on this madhouse. You are the Boss Lady. Maybe Six saw something special in you… or maybe your stripe colors remind him of candy, and bubble gum makes him happy. Honestly it’s hard to say these days. That colt just ain’t right.”
“Half the town was ready to just roll over to the powder gangers. They demanded a sacrifice. He held them to that.” Princess smiled at the elderly courier. “He doesn’t even know why I trust him. But he trusts me to be his boss.”
“It’s okay to have a crush on an ugly old man, you know that right?” The former postmaster heaved a heavy sigh. “Look the point is, Five brought up
Sire’s Hollow in his little love note. Him and Six have kinda a history, and if you’re gonna make a real run at rebuilding the Marejave Express, you deserve to know the truth. About what the NCR did. About the Marejave Express’s involvement… About the Divide.”
“I remember hearing about that when I was filly.” The Post Master shook her head. “Sire’s Hollow used to be as big as New Canterlot, or New Roam. But turned out they were sitting on a time bomb that finally went off? Some kinda pre-war mega-spell research Stable… wait is that where Six came from?”
“Naw, he came outa local Stable. Came to us around twenty years ago. Most of the scars were still fresh back then.” The elderly mare took a long draw from her bottle of Wild Pegasus. “When the NRC sent that package to Sire’s Hollow, it was only the three of us. So we drew lots by union rules. And Six drew the lot. Five wanted the lot. Had family back in Sire’s Hollow, or so he said. I figured it was Imperial business more likely. But the Courier’s are politically neutral, and Five always kept professional on the job. We could trust him. Caesar could trust him. He was trustworthy, and NCR or no, I would have trusted him with that delivery. But Six drew the lot. And two weeks later the mega-spells went off. He never talked about it. Five never talked about it. Hell, I never talked about it. We damn sure never brought it up with the NCR.”