Chapter Two
Craft
“Aideen’s Audiolog. February 3, 1247. It tried to kill us all, but I’m alive... I’m alive.”
I woke up.
I could feel pain, high in quality and quantity.
My feeling of time was scrambled. Maybe five seconds, maybe an hour later I could finally form a thought, and how I got messed up so bad.
My senses were returning. I was lying on my back on some soft surface. I could make out noises and if I were to open my eyes, maybe I could see too. Worth a try, isn’t it?
Eyelids. Open. Now.
Come on...
Clouds came into view. The never ending cloud cover the pegasi had made after they lost Cloudsdayle. A mundanely boring view, but I need something to focus my mind on at the moment. So, History one-oh-one it is. Cloudsdayle had been the first location in Equestria to be hit by a megaspell-enhanced balefire bomb. The pegasi then, loyal as they are (or as loyal as wasteland-word-of-mouth made them out to be), immediately fled behind the clouds and covered everything up. I am quite certain their regular population doesn’t even know there is something below their cloud cover.
After the wall of clouds cut them of there had been one mare, Rainbow Dash, who had called her kin out to be cowards and flew down below the clouds to help the ponies who survived the initial blasts. And every pegasi since then who wanted to help has been literally branded as a traitor.
The “dashites” as they are called, get Rainbow Dashs cutiemark, a lightning bolt coming out of a cloud, burned over theirs. An act of torture, yes, but the truly cruel part is that a cutiemark is considered an essential part of a pony; removing it was atrocious. I could imagine not even a pony who decided to abandon its old life want to have the last piece of themselves removed.
Ugh... Can somepony turn the music down? The noise I could noticed earlier I now recognize as a radio broadcast. It was fast music, loud music. Not something I could need right now. I managed a groan as I turned towards the source. It moved too. What?
My PipBuck, of course. Why would it be switched on? Concentrate. I accessed my PipBuck. Utility, Broadcast, 103fm - Colt’s Well weather station. That is the Crimson Companys broadcast. Why would I listen to that? The song ended. And a deep male voice started its introduction.
“Hello again my faithful listeners...”
Nope, I’m not in the mood. I turned the broadcast off. ‘Nope’, huh... ‘nope’. There had been something about this word. Something is rattling in my mind, trying to– I remember now. The facility, their deaths, how I got the bruises. Nightmare Moons armor calling out to me.
“Oh hey, sleeping beauty woke up!” A female voice from behind me. “I figure first thing you do when waking up is turn that down. No, no, don’t move, you need to heal.” I retreated from the voice’s origin. “Yeah, what were the chances you’d do what I say?” She chuckled.
An unicorn mare stood right in front of me, she had a light golden coat and a multi-colored mane. The different shades of orange and red made her head look like it could spark fire. She was fairly muscular, athletic, probably a fast runner, just like me. She wore a PipBuck, but was otherwise naked, which was odd; everyone in the wasteland wore at least some kind of protection. I wasn’t complaining, seeing someones cutiemark always felt like some kind of honor to me; as if this pony opened up and revealed an important part of itself to me. Her cutiemark showed a histogram.
“I’m not a doctor, so I can do this.” She punched me in the stomach. Too much pain... I gasped only to get something shoved into my mouth. A sponge filled with some awful tasting liquid. “Sleep.” She pressed my mouth closed forcing the liquid inside to run down my throat. I instantly got sleepy again.
*** *** ***
Again I awoke to the sound of my PipBucks radio. It was night. I could almost feel no pain anymore. I now had the mental capability to inspect my own body. I was covered up in healing bandages and my mouth tasted like I had been infused with a healing potion lately.
“The workers at the Crimson company are not simply slaves, fellow wastelanders. Yes, they are owned by us, and yes, they cannot simply go wherever they want, but our workers live in better conditions than many ponies out there. They have warm beds, a community and protection from the dangers of the wastelands. Some of our workers receive proper education in various areas such as medicine, mechanics, computer science, and good old wasteland business.”
Again, the Crimson Company Broadcast. Their usual propaganda. ‘No really, we are the good guys.’ My opinion about the Company is neutral towards positive. They are doing good work, and are really building something, but they use murder, intimidation, and slavery as tools. Not exactly how the good guys should behave.
“The territory our workers are digging over was once been the best farmland in Equestria. The volcanic activity giving Colt’s Well its hot springs also gave the region lots of volcanic ash. Peat. This peat has once been transported to farms all over Equestria. Once upon a time Mount Mustang erupted on a regular basis, every seven years, just like clockwork. However, not since the war. Seems like not even volcanoes can survive megaspells.”
Again she is using the same trick. Well, it is not going to work twice; I’m not gonna switch the broadcast off this time. I saw her sitting by a fire; she was barbecuing something. Food...
“Anyway, our workers dig down far and, just like we assumed, we have found still nutritious land. We are building an empire here, folks; and we are not calling ourselves freaking Crimsons Army. No! we are civilized. For now we are just a company, but rest assured that we are working our way up. Sure, we use low-cost workforces. But that doesn’t mean we are of low quality. But for now, have more music.”
Again she caught me. “After you managed to successfully sneak up on me, how are you planning to continue?” She leaned back supporting herself with her forlegs, while looking at me with her head upside-down. “Kill me?” My stomach growled at the smell of her barbecue. “And then eat me, perhaps?”
She floated a squirrel impaled on a stick in her orange aura over to me. I grabbed it with my own and quickly began eating. “You got messed up pretty badly. I mended on the outside what I could, but I don’t know how it looks like on the inside, ‘cept for the parts which were sticking out of course.” I gulped. “I infused you with healing potion, but have no idea about what I can’t see. Though eating slowly would be advised.”
I finished my squirrel. “Sorry.” What was she apologizing for? She turned around, taking a normal pose again, only to frown in pain and grabbing her head. “Ouch.” She chuckled again. “Bad circulation.”
I just had to ask. “What are you sorry for?”
“Catching you sneak up on me. You could have used the feeling of success. You know, ‘control’. And I took it away from you.” She honestly meant that. For some reason this mare saved me and was worried about my state of mind. “But you are a walking radio and I would have looked pretty stupid if I wouldn’t have noticed you.”
Right, I should have turned it off for sneaking. No, she would have known too. Wow, what a plan, ingenious in it’s simplicity. Turn it off, she knows I’m awake; leave it on, she hears me coming. Additionally, the music wakes me when the sleeping potion wore off and I was healthy again for waking up.
“You can call me Craft, what’s your name?”
“Aideen.”
“Ahhh, a real old school name. Aideen, like the spirit of fire in zebra mythology. Your parents had good taste. I like.”
Okay? “I did not know that.”
“Oh, don’t mind it. I just happen to have freaky knowledge about fire.” She looking at me thoroughly. Was she checking me out? “You’re Crimson Company?”
The barding she had to have removed from me while she mended me has already told her “Yes.”
“You’re a hooker?”
“Wha-?”
“So you are?
“What makes you think that?”
She clacked with her teeth twice. “Oral hygiene. I couldn’t help but notice when I infused you. Crimson Company has good quality, and bad teeth are usually a turn off.”
“And you concluded I’m a hooker from that?”
“Well, you’re not too shabby looking and it’s pretty obvious you were a slave, runaway now. What fucking good that did you.” She nodded towards the cliff I have fallen down from.
“I’m not- I mean I was, but I’m a hacker now.”
Craft tilted her head, narrowing her eyes; She was thinking hard, it seemed. After a while she smiled. “Excellent, consider yourself under new management.”
*** *** ***
We were walking through the night. Craft, my new owner, trotted happily ahead, not even making sure I was following her. There was something strangely off about that mare. I slept almost one and a half day, so of course I had energy, but I had no idea where she was getting it from, considering I had ate all of the squirrels she had caught too.
“Where are we going anyway?”
“Hufstein. I hope to fetch a pretty price for you there.”
“You plan on selling me?”
“Yeah, I don’t need a slave, I need money. Why? Have I grown onto you? I know I’m not a 'normal everyday sympathetic' pony.” Craft spun around, walking backwards to not stop our journey. She smiled and patted her eyelashes. “I’m 'advanced' sympathetic.”
I did not go in on that. “Fort Hufstein lies at the sea, right at the zebra border, right? It was common location for battle. Ships, pegasi, dragons, infantry, artillery, and everything.”
“Somepony paid attention in History class. Seems like Crimson Company doesn’t tell bullshit and really educates their slaves. Centuries before the war, the region passed back and forth between Equestria and local zebratribes. I mean it was in war times, but back then the zebras weren’t really an actual nation before. And Equestria versus a small local tribe isn’t really a war.”
Craft turned around again to see where she was going. “When there was peace it became a good place for trade and a town settled around it. During the war the medieval fort had been upgraded into a modern military base and the town had been somewhat abandoned; nopony wanted to live at the border, of course. Luckily for the wastelands it was no good target and it was only mildly bombed, and the megaspell detonated that outside was no balefire. A little cleanup and you were ready to move in into one of the houses. The only reason it’s no metropolis is because zebras and ponies live there now.”
I knew that, but I didn’t plan on interrupting her. She might have information that slipped my mind and I could use in Hufstein once she sold me. Why am I following her anyways? I should flee and try getting back to the Crimson Company. It might sound weird that I want to get back, but I have a life there, plain and predictable and protected.
*** *** ***
My PipBuck peeped, signalizing midnight. I usually didn’t do this at midnight, but it wasn’t like we were going to sleep anytime soon. “Err.. Craft, wait a moment, please.” Craft looked back, her expression demanded an explanation from me, but she already stopped without one. “It’ll only take me a moment.” I lifted my PipBuck and cleared my throat.
“Aideen’s Audiolog. February 4, 1247. My life was saved by a pony named Craft. She plans to sell me in Hufstein.”
Craft just stared at me for full 10 seconds before she broke out in laughter. “You’re batshit crazy, aren’t you? Bwahaha... ‘Aideen’s Audiolog. February fourth...’ bwahaha.” She didn’t even try to mimic my voice properly. “Why so formal? Ahahaha! Gosh, this is priceless.” She was rolling on the floor now, her legs pedaling in the air.
It was my turn to stare. Other than me, Craft was actually doing something ridiculous. She was rolling around on the dirty wasteland ground laughing maniacally. “Formal? Look, there are two ways to do things, so why not choose the right one?”
Craft stopped laughing. “You’re serious.” She got up and dusted herself off. “There’s certainly truth in your statement.” She took a philosophical tone. “Most ponies are too lazy to do something the right way. A strategy which backfires onto them as they have to do it twice. But why doubletap and waste time, energy, and ammunition when you can do it right with just one try.” She made a pirouette, spinning twice and faced toward our destination again.
I already said it, but there is something off about this mare. I doubt she even takes herself serious. Bursting out in laughter, getting serious, and then philosophizing about the nature of ponykind. “Tell me your cutiemark story.”
Oh... My cutiemark, sure. Her command was not completely out of the blue, after all... “You saw it when you were patching me up.” Cutiemarks are something private, but how can I tell her I didn’t want to talk about it after she already saw it? I’m grateful that she saved me, of course. “You seem smart enough, can’t you guess?”
“Look at you all though, counting on me being arrogant and not refusing your challenge of a guessing game. Sure, I can guess, I actually did already, just not out loud. Why do you think I stopped laughing?”
“It’s not a spectacular story.” I am not modest, it really isn’t. “You really want to know?”
“You’re slacking off; that was weak. Yes, I want to know.” Yeah, it was really weak. “By all means.” she added.
“There is no real story. I grew up in a stable, before it opened. And uhm... my mom worked in maintenance, and so I had to do maintenance too. No, I guess I should start with the PipBuck. When you turn ten years old you get to do your first chores for your profession. Kids have the same as their parents, every profession needed is always filled and the stable can sustain itself for centuries. Sexuality is... uhm... quite open, but you can’t have a kid with someone you... love.”
“You’re explaining your stable, dear.”
“I said there is no real story. There is a computer system which decides on who you will have a kid with. Test-tube babies, a little engineering on the way for genetic diversity in the stable, and that it will be a filly or a colt. When you are 25 you get a kid of your own gender. No emotional binding between the parents however.”
“I know about Stable Eight, you’ll train your kid, and when you’re 50 she will have one; then with 60, that filly starts her duties and you can start retiring. But how did you get your cutiemark?”
“I might as well tell you a long version as we have nothing else to do, so I prepared a long one, okay?”
“Well then, continue your long version.”
“So, I turned ten and received my PipBuck. I took up my duty in maintenance. While every job has to be done in the stable to keep it working, maintenance is the part that literally does so.” I think I skip the part of how honorable I did mine when I was young. “What we do needs to be properly recorded, so my mom told me to make a habit of keeping audiologs. Month and a half later, just before Hearth's Warming Eve it was there.”
“Ahh... what a present from the universe.”
“It’s something I do every day; my cutiemark symbolizes nothing special from me.”
“You mean to tell me you don’t know what it means?” What? I barely noticed Craft had stopped in her tracks again and I almost bumped into her. “You haven’t got a clue on who you really are.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I would tell you I wouldn’t be very good at my job, would I?”
“What?” I looked back at my flank. My cutiemark was covered with my barding, of course, I know my own cutiemark by heart. I got it making an audiolog and I like them. Recording my daily audiolog has never been something mundane for me, it is part of me just like my cutiemark. I never wondered if the picture of a microphone mean't something else. “What do you know about cutiemarks?”
“Is gonna cost you!” Craft shouted back. While I had been somewhat lost in my train of thought she had already continued walking.
I believe this is a good time to tell you what Craft does for a living. She is working as a scout and deals with information. Some information is more valuable than other, and some can fetch a pretty high price. She compares them and creates statistics on different settlements, which then gave her other useful information. Compare the cost of a six day hike to the difference in price when selling something at your destination and you know how to make the most profit of it.
*** *** ***
The cloudcover had let through small amounts of light, indicated that the sun had risen; we had walked through the entire night and Craft started to show symptoms of fatigue. We just found a small shelter along the road, about a days trip away from Hufstein.
“These shelters have been built as a public service, when coal got rare in Equestria and the tickets for the train increased in price, then traveling merchants had to rely on their own feet to reach their destination- Uhhh, jackpot!”
Craft had all this freaky knowledge, but was only content to share when she thinks I couldn’t use it for my own profit. Everything she does was out of the ordinary or supremely weird. She surprised me however when I saw how a rain barrel had the ability to fill her with glee.
In my entire life I have never seen an endearing scene as Craft embracing and caressing that barrel; the ponies I spent my time in the wastelands with never show those kinds of feelings. The expression on Craft’s face was true content, it made me... uncomfortable. “Should I give you two some time?”
She returned a slutty smile. Okay, that was something I can deal with. “Why don’t you join us?”
“No thanks. I think I’ll pass.”
“Can’t let you do that. You’ve gotta obey your masters orders. You come here, you are going to pet this barrel, and you are going to like it.” Is she for real? “Or you can go inside and see if there are some pots in there, we are going to heat up lots of water.”
“You want to make a bath?”
“Correct. You’re dirty. Dirty slaves don’t sell for good money. I’ve got to make you beautiful and I think I’ll change your manestyle too.”
“You want to change my hairstyle?”
“You make yourself undesirable, the opposite of what mares usually do. Sadly it doesn’t work out well for you because I could still see your natural beauty when your limbs stick away in weird angles and through a crust of blood.”
“I... ah...”
“I’m sorry. Beauty means brothel for you. I understand why it makes you uncomfortable and why you do it. I...” Craft sighed and looked to the ground. Was that shame? Well, she is going to do exactly that to me.
“Look, Craft. You are not a slaver, I haven’t known you for long, but I’m guessing you are a good pony. Just take me to Colt’s Well. The Crimson Company will pay you... a finders fee and I’ll have my life back.”
“That is where you are wrong. Your knowledge of equine nature is limited. I am a bad pony. I have even been called a monster before.” Craft punched the barrel, making some water splash out; then she engulfed me in her magic and floated me upside-down over it. “A finders fee? How much is that? Additionally they might think I killed your group, and I can’t take that risk. I can wash you in cold rain water or we can heat this up.”
Single hairs of my mane, the ones that were not held together by the ribbon I have, fell into the water, floating on top of it. “Now, will you obey?” I’ve been threatened before, but it was the very first time, the pony I’m dealing with was utterly unpredictable. “WILL YOU OBEY?!”
“Yes, yes. I will obey.”
“Golly!” She carefully floated me back down, bearing a happy expression again.
Her face was only a mask... She is dangerous. This mare scares me, and I have never been scared of a pony before.
*** *** ***
I needed to do this far more often than I am comfortable admitting. I had been an expert in endurance, it hadn’t even much of a challenge with leader-guy on that mission. Why is Craft even- ahaaah... Keep an neutral expression!
We had moved the barrel inside and found some pots to cook the water in. It was an tiring task as we had no place to store the hot water and had to pour it back into the barrel, but eventually the water obtained a good average temperature. I had pedaled a little to create a small current so the water distributed itself a little, but I got it right and it had actually been pleasant, until she started washing me with a sponge.
Craft was sitting on a chair, leaned back with her legs crossed, her horn aglow. She was watching me as if I was her favorite theatrical play with the comedic highlight arriving; she got ready to say along the lines of the protagonists, which she knew by heart, but I’m not going to give her that satisfaction.
“Tell you what.” Was she giving up? She wasn’t the type to give up. “I’m telling you what your cutiemark means and you will do me the favor of enjoying yourself. You are struggling, that mask of yours is crumbling.” She knows a thing or two about masks, I guess. “What harm would there be if you would give in?”
I did not respond, because I was afraid if I opened my mouth I would let out a moan. Craft seemed to realize that and stopped caressing me. My body twitched a few times under water, but the part Craft could see was kept neutral, like I had trained myself. I had to concentrate so much on it I couldn’t take in information from my sight and she caught me staring into space. Of course she caught me, her special talent requires her to notice things.
Craft was looking away from me. There was this expression again. Shame. I continued to be silent, this time because I remembered how she reacted the first time when I tried to console her. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of issues she has.
“Am I... am I torturing you?” She was even stuttering. ‘I have even been called a monster before.’
“N-” It’s exactly what she was doing, but I can’t tell her that.
Awkward silence.
“It’s your voice.” Huh? “Your cutiemark,” Craft explained, “it appeared when you recorded your voice and figured out you like it. You may be some professional speaker or radio announcer, maybe even a singer. What I can tell you is, that you have a melodic voice. That is the reason why...” she paused. “... I wanted to hear you squee.”
She threw the sponge against the wall. There was that anger again, at least it wasn’t directed to me. “You are a virgin, right?” Wha-? She had to know I was... “Figuratively speaking, I mean. You have never really opened up to anyone before.”
Craft stood up and walked out the door, one last time she turned around and said. “FYI: I’m sure as hell the wrong pony for that.” Then she was gone.
*** *** ***
Footnote: You have reached Level 3!
New Perk: Study Group: Your skills rise 50% faster as long as you have one companion in your party with a higher skill level.
Skill Note: Cooking has reached 25.
Skill Note: Speech has reached 25.
New Quest: Freedom
[ ] Follow Craft to Hufstein or make your way back to Colt's Well