It was a shallow and dreamless sleep, like blinking my eyes and waking up somewhere else. I opened my eyes slowly, expecting to be locked up somewhere dark. I had obviously been the subject of some horrendous torture at the hands of my new captors, because I hurt EVERYWHERE. Every time I moved, little daggers of pain jabbed me in every nerve ending that my body had inside it. I groaned out loud, letting my eyes adjust to the dim room where I was being held captive, I turned over onto my back, moaning in pain as the assault on my body continued, letting myself enjoy the soft bed underneath me. Wait... Bed? I was in a bed? This was unexpected, being a prisoner shouldn't have included such comfortable accommodations. Oh no, its worse than I thought, I'm being kept against my will as a trick pony for some pervert! Blegh! But wait again, I looked over myself and realized that they had fixed me up. My limbs were no longer bent in all the wrong directions, I couldn't feel my ribs free floating inside my chest, and my torso was wrapped tightly in bandages. This didn't reassure me, because sensibly, a rapist wouldn't want to touch a mangled, broken corpse. I looked at my Pip-Buck and examined my stats, which to my surprise showed no ailments, and no crippled limbs, and even said my head trauma was resolved. I couldn't believe that, as my head still hurt as if it had been slammed into the ground at high speeds, oh wait, its all coming back to me now. My head was slammed into the ground at high speeds, so that felling was well explained.
I felt raw all over. I wondered if this was what Wendy felt like when he had his rough landing. Oh shit. Are they alright? I ask myself looking at the nearest door, my eyes finally readjusted, which allowed me to look around in the dimly lit room. This cell indeed was very luxurious. It had a window, a separate bathroom, and a wooden door, and still shockingly, a bed.
I tried to sit up in bed and I quietly cried out, as my weak bones didn't like the idea of cooperation. I collapsed back down eyeing the door, which mocked me with its proximity. I began to cry to myself, letting tears roll out onto the soft mattress. There was no way I could see myself getting out of this one. My friends were surely dead and I would never see my friendly home in the stable again. Never see my parents, and even the Overmare who I hated so.
I began crying louder, hoping that my captors would come to me and end it, because by now, I surely had nothing to live for. Maybe they would be merciful and just kill me instead of slowly violating me until I keeled over. As I continued crying, I heard steps coming up stairs. So I knew I was on the second floor. I watched the door creak open, expecting to find a slaver, or a gryphon come through the doorway, what came around was even worse than I had expected, the door swung open and in walked a fleshrotten ghoul, Grey flakes of skin and coat stuck to horrible rotten meat, the remains of its bubbly cutie mark remained on its flank, with strands of butter yellow mane growing out from the top of its head. Mocking me with its horrible yellow walleyed eyes and its remains of wings with no more than a dozen feathers sprouting out total.
I began to cry even louder and more desperately as I shrank back against my pain to distance myself from the zombie, who began to advance slowly. My friends were a snack, and I was next! The should mare sat on the edge of the bed with me, scooting across the mattress towards me. Not only were they going to eat me, but the ghoul was going to rape me beforehand. She leaned in to begin tearing me limb from limb, I cringed expecting more pain, but l opened my eyes to her, who had latched her arms around me in a big squishy hug, and surprisingly, she didn't small like a corpse like the other ghouls I had encountered. She even seemed friendly, but I was hesitant to let my guard down.
She let go of me and reached under her wing. I flinched expecting a weapon, but she only produced a small blackboard and a piece of yellow chalk and began writing on it with her mouth, she turned the board around to show a message written with expert penmanship, reading, 'Good to see your'e awake.' She erased it with a few wipes of her hoof and began writing again, this time reading, 'How are you feeling?'
I stared at her with a look of pure confusion. First a hug, and then apparent concern? What's next wasteland? My voice stammered out crustily, gaining clarity as my sentences went on, "Umm, okay I guess, Better than earlier? I think?"
She gave a partially toothless smile and began writing on her board again, 'Glad to hear it, can you walk? Does anything still hurt?'
I continued staring at her, still fearful of what she had in store for me. "Why? Why do you care, arent you going to kill me? Scream at me? Tear my skin off?"
She visually drooped, folding her ears back, aligning her eyes to look at me sadly, she looked down at her board and began to write again, turning it around to reveal another message, 'I care because I'm friendly, I saved you from getting shot by our mayor and brought you here and patched you up and had a friend of mine heal you up nicely. Do I look feral?'
Friendly ghouls? This was new. Ferals? I didn't understand any of this, and I was still fearful of her, but I began to let my guard down, starting to trust her, and fighting against the pain to sit up in bed, which I successfully achieved this time. She reached forward and helped me to sit up. This time, I didn't shy away from her touch. Sitting up, I looked over at her and smile sincerely. "I didn't know that there were friendly ghouls, I had, a very bad experience with some ghouls yesterday in the Old Appleoosa trainyard. I'm SO sorry for judging, I'm new to the wastes."
At my apology, she brightened up, putting a hoof over my shoulder and smiling again. She broke away to write on her blackboard again, 'Were the ones there foul, screaming, insane zombies?' I nodded and she began to write again. 'Kill as many of them as you want, they are feral, and as you can tell, a lot different from ghouls like me.'
I nodded again and smiled at her, trusting her completely now "Well, thanks for the help with that. And um.. Whats your name?"
She wrote again on her board 'Ditzy Doo at your service.' She giggled silently and wrote another message 'But most of the citizens here call me Derpy. Because of my eyes.' I smiled again, having sense not to ask her about her eyes, not wanting to offend my host again.
"Nice to meet you Ditzy, Umm, where exactly am I?" I asked looking around the tastefully decorated room.
'You're in the friendliest little settlement in all of the wasteland, New Appleoosa.' I brought my Pip-Buck up to meet my face and scrolled to the map, and sure enough, my marker was near a small box labeled, "New Appleoosa."
"Last question, wheres my brother and my friend, Rusty? Are they okay? Are they safe? Are they even alive?" I asked with a serious frown, but Ditzy smiled and slid her board under her wing and stood up. I watched her as she opened the door leading downstairs, motioning for me to follow her down, I scooted over to the edge of the bed and worked on bringing myself up to my hooves. As I brought them to the floor I gasped at the intense pain from my weak limbs and collapsed to the floor in a painful heap. Ditzy rushed to my side and shouldered me up, supporting me and steadying me with her wing. I nodded my thanks to her and she returned a 'happy to help' smile. She was beginning to remind me of mom, more and more by the minute.
She helped me down the stairs into a large shop room, with walls decorated by shelves, adorned mostly with junk, but with some weapons and even the occasional rifle. Boxes of Items were stacked around the lower parts of the walls, and a large crate sat in the middle of the room surrounded by four chairs, one of which was occupied by my brother, who was bandaged up over his raw areas, and fast asleep, leaning on a hoof at the makeshift table, his wings lightly fluttering in his sleep. I smiled, and Derpy assisted me in limping over to the table where I sat watching him sleep, waiting for him to wake up. By his snoring that didn't seem like it would be any time soon.
Ditzy returned to her counter, and began rummaging around through a box, squinting at me with her walleyed gaze. and pulling out four medical braces for each of my legs. Two for the front joints, and two to fit the fetlocks of my hind legs. She fluttered over the counter gracefully, dropping all of the braces onto the table, signaling me to try them on.
I sat up on the chair and started on my hind legs, sliding my legs into the braces, aligning the joints of the bone to the joints of the medical brace, and tightening the brace. I smiled as it fit just fine, and began repeating the process with the identical brace on my other leg, and then attaching the braces to my front legs. I got out of the chair, testing my weight on the braces. It still hurt to stand, but at least it was doable. I began to walk around the room, but found I had to resort to using a limp. Ditzy watched happily as the braces restored my ability to walk.
"Thank you so much Ditzy." I say hugging her again "How much do I owe you?"
She smiled and shook her head, producing her blackboard to write, 'No charge, friend.' I hugged her again happily, and she hugged back. Yep, She was exactly like mom.
"So, can I just go anywhere?" I ask her looking at the door, with early morning light beginning to pour into the room. She nodded and motioned to the door with her hoof. I smiled and limped my way over to the door.
Outside was a chaotic scene of destroyed buildings, and dirty ponies trotting around attempting to clean up a town that had recently been pillaged. This town had much the same layout of Old Appleoosa, except that It was much more lively here. Another important difference was the lack of slaves, everypony I could see was free and mostly happy. They clustered together in groups, happily talking about a victory over slavers, and from what I could tell, the place had definitely been attacked recently. Thinking back, maybe it would have been better to let the train passing us be derailed by the track switch.
I continued trotting about, searching for any familiar faces among the crowds, but it seemed they would find me first. As I continued searching, a group of ponies surrounded me, headed by Rusty and the familiar face of Scrap Metal who both hugged me. I cringed at the affectionate hugs, for my body still hurt at the slightest touch.
"I see you made it here in one piece." Scrap said letting go of me along with Rusty, who withdrew to a safe distance from me in his timid nature.
"Mostly" I said, happily greeting him with a nudge of his arm.
He looked down at my braces and cringed a bit. "What happened to you, you look like a train wreck."
Inside I was hit hard with the memories brought forth by his word choice. "Urgh.. tell me about it. I'm still raw all over from that. How bout you Rusty?"
He nodded and in his soft spoken voice said, "In a lot of pain. I broke one of my wings." He lifted up the damaged limb with a wince, displaying the bandages. "And also twisted my hind leg, but that's not too serious."
Scrap gave a chuckle and asked me, "So how's old Ditzy been treating you?"
I smiled, "She's great, she reminds me of my mom."
"Getting a little homesick?"
"Just a bit. Also, I had no idea there were nice ghouls." This brought quite a laugh from the whole group.
As Scrap finally stopped laughing, he nodded, "Old Derpy is one of the sweetest ponies you will ever meet in the wasteland, shes nice to everyone, and will help anypony in need."
Okay, now, this was getting frightening. Was my mom related to Ditzy? "Well, I'm glad we all made it here in one piece." I say leaning against Rusty who looked away again bashfully. I chuckled and put an arm around him. That rewarded me with a bright red face, burning in embarrassment as all of his new friends started making lubby-dubby remarks about us, I felt myself start to get slightly red as well and I looked at Rusty who gave a shy shrug.
I let go of him and stepped back to a safe distance to fan away the growing awkwardness between us as we looked away from each other. The laughter from the group quieted down. I looked at Rusty and asked, "So, shall we head back to Ditzy's and wake my brother?" He nodded. We said our goodbyes to our friends and began hobbling side by side toward the shop.
As we walked in, I slammed the storm door shut with excessive force, which caused Wendy to jump from his chair and fall back onto the floor, not in pain, only shock. Derpy covered her mouth in silent laughter and Rusty and I burst into heavy laughter as my brother struggled to get his bearings back.
"Dammit gears! If you weren't a cripple, I'd cripple you again for that." He said staggering to his hooves.
I chuckle and stuck out my lower lip while I gave the most soulful puppy-dog eyes I could and asked, "Would you ever hurt me?"
"Yes." He replied coldly. "Especially for interrupting that dream."
"What was the dream about?" I asked in a sorry tone.
"Home." He said looking out the window.
I smiled and looked at my Pip-Buck, "According to this, you can stop dreaming, because it's time to go home today."
He perked up instantly but frowned again, "How do we get home?"
Ditzy tapped on the counter which got out attention. She motioned outside and we followed her outside to a large buggy, which I had assumed was going to be broken down for scrap, but I hadn't an idea that it was in functioning condition. She motioned to the back, we took one last look at the little town and climbed aboard the buggy as Ditzy hooked herself to the front of the buggy.
* * *
As it turned out Ditzy was full of surprises, With seemingly puny wings, she pulled a sky cart, containing three full grown ponies across the skies of the wasteland, almost as high as the mountain we had been on. I was afraid to look over the edge of the cart, watching my brother, again, my opposite, Standing up in the cart with his wings outstretched. As Ditzy signaled us that we were close to our destination, my brother leaped over the edge of the cart with his wings outstretched, beginning to descend in a spiral until he landed, not exactly gracefully, but better than the landing he had with the train.
Rusty, Ditzy, and I landed soon after, , all of us jumping out of the cart, trotting in place giddily excited to go back home and see the familiar faces of friends and family. I turned to Ditzy, who smiled at me, "I'll never forget you Ditzy" I said giving her a hug, which she returned. We all said our goodbyes and headed to the still pristine door hiding the tunnel that led to the Stable.
As we swung open the door, we were greeted by a foul odor in the dimly lit tunnel. I looked around and let my eyes adjust to the light. As the world focused into view again, I noticed two more bodies were added to the corpses along the sides of the tunnel. At first I paid them no mind as I proceeded to the door of my stable. I headed up to the control panel and entered the passcode and pulled the lever to open the door. Click. Nothing. I looked back at Rusty and Wendy who shrugged at me. I tried the passcode again with different capitalization. Still nothing. I hummed in confusion and looked at the bodies.
"Search them, maybe they have something to do with it." We all headed over and fell backwards in shock when we were greeted by the cold, dead faces of our parents, My father, Sea Spray, and My mother, Sea Shell. As tears began to pour out of my eyes, it hit me. "The Overmare never intended for us to come back in, It was just a ploy to get rid of all of us."
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Footnote: Level Up
Perk Added: Paranoia - Your ability to see things from many perspectives combined with your recent head trauma has granted you +2 Perception, at the cost of a bit of your sanity.
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I'd like to thank KKat for writing the original Fo:E for writing an unbelievably great story, and Somber, for writing Project Horizons, the story that pushed me over the edge and forced me to try my hand in writing.