//------------------------------//
// And You Probably Thought She Was Important 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Taking Life By The Horns 
// by Pokonic 
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I woke up when something kicked me in my ribs.

"Watchful, get your sorry butt up off the ground." my abuser growled.

Well, somepony anyway.

Groaning slightly, I used the desk an arms length away to support myself as I got up, I took a few moments to notice that I felt terrible. My limbs were achy and it felt like I had a gallon of slimy floor-water stuck on my back, and the cuts on my chest were painful and itchy. The back of my head felt like it was about to split, and the base of my horns were dully throbbing. My legs were bruised a bit as well, and to complete the package of pain it felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself.

"Blueberry, please." I half-whined,

She looked like she was either going to continue kicking me or break down and tantrum. She looked even worse than yesterday, hair matted into greasy purple strands all over her face and shoulders, and her eyes were wild and all but bloodshot. I was almost expecting to see Self Defense hovering nearby.

"Watchful, I...I don't want to talk to you right now, do you understand me?" she spat. "Do you understand what it was like to wake up and you be missing? Gone! Vanished!"

I remembered the event that caused me to get where I was, but I barely believed it myself and I doubted she would have appreciated me saying anything related to me being ambushed by some creature of the night.

"I understand, Blu-"

She cut me off with a vicious noise from the back of her throat. "Oh, no you don't! How could you...how dare you! How dare you! You have no right to say that, Ever Watchful!"

I felt her jamming a hoof into my right knee, but I was too numb by her outburst to really appreciate the extra effort she made into trying to provoke a physical response from me.

"Why not, Blueberry?" 

"Because you don't have to live with the fact that, every day, there's a chance that you wake up and have no idea what got you there or why! You don't have to live with the fact that your a years travel away from the only family you have left and that your only friend probably hates you and is keeping the only thing you really own away from you! Your not the one who wakes up every morning and makes sure that, when you wake up, you know who the other creature in the room is!" she shrieked at me, voice all edges and cracks.

I had little choice in stepping back, as Blueberry's horn was sparking, and I didn't want to get anywhere near it. Looking at my fearful, somewhat pained look, she started to laugh a little false laugh in between deep breaths. 

"And if it makes you feel any better, Candy Cane refused to come with us." she said almost smiling at me, which somehow only made it worse. "Mostly because of your giant fish pony friend."

I reared up fully, blood rushing to my head, and after fumbling around a bit I took my first steps forward that day.

"What? She's here?" I said, only somewhat surprised.

Blueberry looked at me for a few moments, face contorted into the exact opposite of a smile. "Oh, yes she is. Don't worry, we talked. She apologized. I didn't gut her, if you are so concerned with her safety. Candy Cane is still alive. Everyone is going to fine, of course, because your going to talk to it and then we can all just fucking skip to Tauronto to see the Reavers and the Pure and the cult and everything else and be just fucking happy the entire time because it's not like my feelings are important at all."

It took a few seconds for me to catch the bitterness in her voice, and I frowned. "Blueberry, stop that. That is not true at all."

She bucked the ground with her back legs, causing the wood to creak. 

"Oh, shut up, Watchful! You are more interested in that fish thing down there than about what we are going to do when we get out of there, and do I have to remind you that that thing ate me! I can feel my head ache when I look at it! It's unnatural, Watchful! Do you think I am just going to be okay with you being all cozy with a cannibal?"

I took a deep, calming breath in an attempt to clear my head, and gave my most neutral look at Blueberry, smiling just a little bit but not to overtly. "Blueberry, please, we can talk this out, there is no need to be upset, we-"

She turned around, huffing, and was halfway out the door before looking at me spitefully. "Go ahead, talk to your fishy friend, I don't care, I will be waiting downstairs."

I didn't do anything besides stand there wordlessly as Blueberry stormed out of the room and found her way to the entrance to the rest of the building. After a few moments, I slumped on the desk, unable to stand. 

This had to be the rudest awakening I have ever had, and the last one I had involved the building I was sleeping in exploding. And yet, I knew that the only way that it could possibly improve was one of the reasons that I was just called out. Blueberry had every right to be upset, if not a little angry, and I could not blame her. 

Well, mostly, anyway.





After stepping out of the room, it actually took me a moment to find the twelve foot long pony fish mutant, mostly due to her being almost entirely out of the water and on the unloading area, which was raised up to the point that a measly half-inch of water covered it. Considering that she was actually propping her elbows on a half-sunken ship and did not seem to notice Blueberry's little spat, I believed she was sleeping.

As I climbed down, I noticed a few things I didn't catch when I was in the Seahorse regarding what Sea Salt looked like, thanks to the room actually being big enough for me to get a horizontal view of her. Foremost, her black-grey serpentine hindquarters actually seemed to replace the general area of pony’s legs, and in fact she resembled a hugely oversized pony from the rump up. I also noticed that she had long light blue-green hair that was mostly matted down her neck, which somewhat explained why I did not notice its color before. 

.It also seemed that, for whatever reason, the only place she had actual scales was on her upper torso, with the rest of body either furred or completely hairless and rubbery looking. Her ears, to my slight amusement, were flattened and were almost hidden in her hair, but resembled little ridged fins. I was also surprised at what I didn't see, with no fins or gill slits in sight, and if she had a cutie mark, I couldn't see it.

Eventually, after a few moments of pony-watching, I got to the first floor, which was just a few feet in height above that of the loading area, and brought my left hand to my mouth and whistled.

A flurry of movement and splashing signaled that she was awake, and after a great lazy yawn, she looked at me with something between appreciation and mild annoyance.

"Oh, hi there, Ever Watchful." she said sleepily, making the ship creak slightly and she used it as support to turn around to face me on the other side of the room. "Blueberry and I had a talk, did she tell you?"

I could hear a bit of nervousness in her voice, which was understandable considering that it had yet to be three days since she nearly ate her. "Yeah, she did." I said tiredly myself, "how was she, anyway?"

She winced lightly, and she started to scratch lightly at the ship she was resting on, which caused the air to be filled with the sound of creaking metal. "Well..." she said, drawing out her breath, "she seemed distant, which I guess I can't blame her, really."

For a few moments, the room was utterly silent, and I could only wonder what happened to the little filly that made this place her home.

"I think I scared the little filly who was here when I arrived, considering, um..."

I looked at her face. It was the face of some pony that wanted to change the subject. 

"You didn't try to hurt her, did you?" I said, somewhat anxiously.

She shook her head slower than I would have wanted her too. 

"Well, no, but, well, I kind of arrived her when she was playing with Blueberry, and I waved at Blueberry, but I guess I shouldn't have smiled." she said, big saucer-eyes glazed over with something. "I guess a mouthful of 'dagger teeth', as Blueberry called them, is not the best sort to make a friendly grin."

She sounded distant, almost disengaged from reality, which made me want to change the subject before we started going down darker roads.

"Sea Salt, how did you get here, anyway?"

She looked somewhat surprised, and the light frown she sported upturned. "Well, that water drain led to the river, and I knew this place because it was the place the fish food for the aquarium arrived in.”

I thought for a moment. "Do they grow in water? In size, I mean."

Her cheerful look began to look earnest. "Yeah, they did. There green, and there kind of like vegetarian food balls or something. I never did get what they were, exactly, but the fish used to eat them. Why, are some here?"

I felt even worse about Candy Cane, knowing that she was surviving on things that were supposed to feed fish, but I did not even want to try to bring that up.

"I saw a few in here, yeah. There are barrels full of them." 

She nodded, but after a few moments paused spoke in a lower voice than before, almost conspiracal in tone. 

"So, is it always this bad looking and cold outside, or is it winter or something?" 

"It's late fall, but the temperature doesn't really change except in early spring and early winter. However, this place is actually pretty decent looking as far as places in the wasteland go."

She winced at that, and pointed a claw to the ceiling. "Well, yeash, and I thought this place was bad when it wasn't entirely wreaked."

I stood there for a moment, mind reaching out for things to say. Finally, I settled on something that was important enough to bring up.

"I have to ask, Sea Salt, are you, well, okay with yourself?" 

She leaned back away from me, and her tail began to move back and forth almost threateningly. "Well, yeah. I mean, I feel fine, really. I have done some thinking since I have gotten here, though."

She paused for a moment, and she suddenly shifted a bit to the right, bringing up her tail and, by extension, most of her body out of the water.

"I mean, look at my tail. It's a fish tail, but most of my body is still mammal in nature, but I have these scales," she poked her torso for emphasis, "and I have hands! Not hooves, not fins, but hands. And I think I can feel my legs too, or at least the muscles that would have been my legs along with the rest of the one's in my tail, like they just fused together."

For a moment, she looked at me like all of these were startling realizations. Finally, somewhat sullenly, she continued. 

"And I can breathe underwater, but I don't have any gills or anything like them. And I can actually feel my front teeth when I close my mouth. It's really weird; I have no idea what I am, biology-wise." 

She paused for a moment, and swished her tail around a bit." There's parts of me that resemble something like a whale, other parts that seem to be fish in nature, other parts that seem to be unchanged, while there are some that I have no idea about." she finished, holding up a claw to show what she was talking about.

I thought for a few moments, and smiled to myself when I figured out a reasonable response.

"Well, if anything, some ponies have called me part bull or part goat. But, really, I am a minotaur, in the end. I guess you are whatever you want to be."

Her eyes widened, and her mouth started quivering. 

"Tha..thank you. Thank you very much." she said, shaky and hopeful.

I nodded, feeling my neck creak slightly. "No, it's nothing. Please, if you have any questions at all, please tell me."

The moderately tender moment was interrupted by a deep rumbling sound.

I quickly realized it was coming from Sea Salt's stomach.

"Err...do minotaur’s always eat meat?" she said, mild embarrassment replacing hope in her voice.

I shook my head. "Not always, but I don't like the preserved foodstuffs that you can find in cans now and then. There's not much plant matter in the wasteland that one could eat."

She looked at me, almost painfully, and I realized the real meaning behind her question. I scanned the room for anything that looked decently meaty-ish, and quickly realized that finding meat in a pre-war building was out. 

"Can we agree that eating ponies is not a option, now?" I said, trying to keep to the subject while thinking about how to solve the issue at hand.

"Well..." she hummed, "what about not killing ponies?"

I gave her an unamused look. She looked unfazed.

"Hey, it's not cannibalism if it's not the same species." she said, looking around the room herself.

Groaning, I was wondering what exactly I had gotten into. 

"Why...oh come on, I know you used to be a pony, you have to remember that." I said, arms outstretched in protest.

"I didn't even like other ponies back then, you know. Where I come from, there were not even that many, and even then that doesn't mean all the ones here were not jerks. Besides, I was never a...I mean, look at this place!" she waved a hand in the general area of the first floor," This and the town are some of the most terrible places I have ever seen." she said with a little edge to her voice.

"You passed by the town?" I said.

She blinked slowly. "Well, yeah. It's hard to miss, being all trashed up and stuff. Really, there were burnt buildings and broken things and corpses everywhere. It looked like something out of a..."

At that, she seemed to have a sudden realization, and gave me a slightly hopeful look.

"Please tell me you’re not expecting me to..." I said, feeling somewhat defeated.

She nodded quickly. I groaned again.

"Just this once. After this, you are going to have to feed yourself." I said sternly.

She, infuriatingly, nodded, and turned her head slightly to the boat entrance. "The river connects with the bay, and I would hope that there's some fish there. But just in case, is there anything out there that I can eat that’s not supposed to send me into a guilt trip?"

"Well, there's brahman."

She stared at me uncomprehendingly. 

Oh, wait, two-hundred years old.

"Brahman are cattle, but they have two heads." I said.

"Well, that would work. But why do they have two heads? Do they talk?" she said, tilting her huge head to the side.

"That’s just how they are. The radiation mutated them. And no, not usually." 

"Oh."

I knew she wanted to ask how and why, and if it had anything to do with her own mutations, but she said nothing at all.

"So, this is where I go and wait for you outside, right?" she said finally.

"Yeah, it is." I responded. "You said something about a bay, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, it's in Tauronto, Well, beside it, anyway. It's in lake Trotario, and I remember it being really nice most of the year."

I shook my head. "If we are going to see each other again, as some sort of meeting point, preferably close. We are heading down the road, not by river, so we won't be able to contact each other for a while. I mean, last time, you didn't tell me that it was this place, specifically."

She frowned as she heard that, and scratched at the slimy film covering the dock lightly. "Well, last time I was there, there was a place called Sugar Beach. Hopefully, it's still there. It's not far away from the river, anyway."

I nodded my head, and looked past Sea Salt and at the boat entrance. "I do need to go, Sea Salt. Meet my by the bridge, I am going to tell Blueberry we are disposing of the dead ponies, and you can...eat, alright?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Alright. I think I am going to spend a few more minutes in here, though, it feels nice. Not as cold as the water." Her ears perked up. "The river doesn't freeze, right?"

"I don't know, but I don't think it would, anyway." I said half-heartedly, feeling bad that I knew almost nothing about the place I was in.

"Well, that's okay, Anyway, I don't think I have to worry about it getting too cold." she said wistfully. "Even after two hundred years," she poked at her side with a claw, "the damage from years of binging on sugary Equestrian food is still there. My goodness, I must be alive from all the preservatives in those cakes." she said, laughing lightly.

I could only help but laugh a little too, but I knew I needed to leave before Blueberry tried to kill me.

"I'm going, see you soon." I said, waving as I stepped off of the pier and onto more solid ground. "At the bridge, alright?"

She nodded, still smiling, and kept watching me even as I left the room, and I knew that because she would have made a noise if she moved at all.

Finally, after I managed to get to the hallway, somehow unsoiled disregarding two hundred years since it was last used, I sat down against the wall, breathing heavily and trying to get the image of her trying to eat me out of my mind.





Blueberry was waiting downstairs, and by that I mean she was sitting dejectedly in front of the smoldering fireplace, staring at nothing at all. Seeing that she did not turn to face me, as noisy as the creak of the staircase was, I quietly took my way down the stairs and, going by the fact she did not acknowledge  my presence, and I felt a little worried when she did nothing at all when I walked over to the fire.

"Blueberry, wake up." I said an arms-distance away from her, "we can go now."

Her eyes were open, but they didn't seem to focus on anything. Her mouth was open slightly, and in general she looked like she was in a daze.

And so, I pushed her shoulder lightly. This caused her to fall down.

"Oomph." 

Well, at least it woke her up.

"Come on, Blueberry, time to go." I said, a little bit of fear entering my voice.

"Whaaaat?" she said slowly, "what’s...what time is it?"

"It's still morning, Blueberry. Come on, let's go." I said, happy to see that, at the very least, she was talking and moving.

Moving carefully to her hooves, she groggily looked at the fire, and then at our collective pile of stuff.

"Sorry that I yelled at you earlier. I worked myself up." she said in a disengaged tone. "How did you get like that, anyway?"

I looked at the scratch marks on my chest, and thought about what happened last night.

"I think an animal attacked me." I said. I knew it was not an animal, as it was clearly a pony, but she didn't need to know that.

"Ah." she said quietly.   

I looked at her as she slowly packed her bags with what little she gained from the unloading area, which seemingly consisted of a few dozen of those incinerating rounds and nothing else. I gathered my things, and remembered something that might cheer her up, and hopefully get her out of her slump.

"Hey, Blueberry, if you want, you could talk to Candy Cane again. We could take her with us, if you really want her too."

She stared at me uncomprehendingly.

"Watchful, who's Candy Cane?"

I stared at Blueberry for a few moments.

"Watchful, answer me!"

I think my hand's were shaking slightly as I turned to the door we entered in and walked over to it.

"Watchful, who is Candy Cane!" Blueberry yelled.

I almost turned around, but by the time she broke into yelling I had opened the door.

In essence, I was too busy being shocked at what I was looking at, and eventually Blueberry stomped over and promptly lost her attitude when she saw what I was looking at. She might have swore.

Apparently,going by the unsettlingly large groups of ponies shooting at each other, there was a war going on outside.