Chapter 4: Oasis
"This is my house and you follow my rules!"
"Don't be so shy. If you're going to break into a stallion's home, at least introduce yourself."
The booming voice came from petite white unicorn standing atop the grand staircase in the middle of the foyer of the Hotel Haflinger. He stood with the pomp and swagger of a king above his subjects. A confidence most likely born from the bottle floating alongside him.
Or possibly the confidence came from the large, griffon-made revolver strapped around the unicorn's chest.
"I think I understand now. You two are traveling mimes here to spread mirth and joy with your silent antics, hmm?" The unicorn's cold grin fixed on Fizzy and I between pulls from his bottle.
"We are not mimes," Fizzy spoke first. "We just need shelter, you have a sizeable place and I'm certain you can give up just a bit of it to us."
"We're not mimes!" I repeated Fizzy. I sprung to my hooves and plastered the biggest grin I could dig out of my repertoire on my muzzle. "Very difficult to be a mime in today's world, anyways. You ever try to stay quiet when a raider tries to flay your cutie mark off? Because it ain't easy. And that's just what they do the mimes they like."
"You two are funny ones," the unicorn held us with the same amusement as foal before squashing a bug. He polished off the bottle, smacked his lips wetly and flung the bottle aside before starting his descent from the top of the stair. "But I am not nearly drunk enough for jokes. So why don't you two get telling me who you are and why I shouldn't put two in both of your heads?"
A red aura flared around the grip of the unicorn's revolver.
"As I stated--," Fizzy started
I stopped her with a quick glance. I could already tell that this pony was not the type to be swayed by her pointing out any sort of appeal other than his own. A drunk with a gun who lays a minefield in front of their home is not one about to give up an inch of it without something to gain.
"Liquor," I dug one of the whiskey bottles from the Manticore crate. "I've got more where that came from. "The name's Curtain Call."
"You bring your own?" he turned his bloodshot eyes toward me. He paused at the landing, took a moment to sway in place, and nodded. "I like you. No one ever brings booze to the party."
"My name is Two-Shot. This is my place. Let me get the others." He turned and shouted to the upper floor. "You two, get out here. We got more for the party."
A pair of mares slipped from the darker rooms above us. A pink unicorn was first; she had a cherry on her flank. The second was a light blue earth pony with a pair of shears for a mark. They did not bother to wait, or seemed wary at all that we had just barged in on them.
The pair walked down the stairway until they flanked Two-Shot. The two of them had just about the most purely contented smiles I had seen in my life.
This party must have been something.
"This one is Daisy, the other is Cherry Pop. If you cannot figure them out, then there is nothing I can do to help you," Two-Shot said in a bombastic and half-slurred way. "They are my mares." His triumphant grin was a weapon aimed for me.
I looked toward Fizzy, she gave me a consenting nod. She understood that conversation was my area of expertise. "This is Fizadora "Fizzy" Tonic. She's a friend. Pleasure to meet all of you, sorry for the inconvenience, but we were-,"
Two-Shot interrupted my spiel with a raised hoof. "That's all I want. Don't care about the rest. You are here, you bring booze, you bring a filly, I like you. You can stay. You just need to know the rules." He cleared his throat, and once again, I couldn't help but notice he was more petite than both of the mares he was with. I wondered if he was using magic to amplify his voice.
"Rule number one: do not fuck with my booze." Two-Shot gestured toward a tall case containing a number of colorful and oddly shaped bottles. The well cared for bottles stood in neat, rows.
"Rule number two: do not fuck with my guns."
Two-Shot's cutie mark was a targeting reticle. I began to feel that rule two was a smart one to obey.
"Rule number three: do not fuck with my mares."
The mares at his flanks nodded in unison.
"And rule number four: do not fuck with me!"
Two-Shot snapped, snarling he stepped toward Fizzy and I. The two of us stepped back, shrinking at the sudden rage flaring from Two-Shot. His accusatory looks begged a challenge that neither Fizzy nor I would provide.
I watched his eyes. I watched him. I watched his gun.
Then, just as quickly as it came, the rage left. Two-Shot shook his head and smiled . "You two are smart, I like that. Now who wants to get shitfaced?" he belted out a deep guffaw.
Two-Shot trotted over toward the large liquor cabinet, telekinetically throwing open the doors. Arcane tendrils grabbed up bottles, levitating them with ease in a close orbit around Two-Shot. He laughed and invited us. "Come, come, this is a party! Don't be so shy, I couldn't scare you that badly."
I shared a mutual look of uncertain fear with Fizzy. It would have been safer sleeping out in the minefield. The look on Fizzy's face that this "party" was still my realm to deal with.
With a breath and a leap of faith, I made my way toward Two-Shot. "If you're going to offer, then I'll take your best. With a spread like this, no doubt it's the best of the best."
"Anything less would be an insult," Two-Shot claimed with no shortage of sloshed pride.
Two-Shot spun on me, the bottles around his head rotated and orbited one another in a ballet of booze before they settled back down, lined up like soldiers for battle. He selected a collection of glasses scavenged from different sets around the wasteland. None of the glasses looked alike but they all held a collection of clear and brown liquors.
Two-Shot stood to the side and crossed his legs. "That is how a real unicorn uses his magic," he said with a laugh, his eyes blinking out of sync with each other.
A faint pink hue spun around the drinks, lifting them with gentle ease. "I'll just put these on the table," said Cherry, appearing from behind me. "So we can all drink comfortably." She walked by me when she claimed the drinks, while she passed, she turned to me, caught my eye, smiled and winked at me.
Cool it, I thought. After the night I had I was in no state trouble like Cherry. With Two-Shots' stated rule number three and his mental state, I couldn't risk her.
I focused on my drink. It was warm, and it burned going down my throat. The intoxicating fire was a welcome addition to the myriad aches and pains I had been stifling in my desire to survive.
With the benefit of social lubricant, we got along swimmingly. I got out the radio I salvaged from the Sparkle-Cola offices. We were only interested in music, jumping from frequency to frequency in order to stick to a song or something with high spirits. Not a one of us was interested in the news or hearing about what was happening with a Stable pony, or some ghost of the airwaves. We danced and commented on the liquor and music to avoid talking. Two-Shot and his girls were friendly once you got past his rules. For a while, we ignored reality, the barbarians at the gate and the ragged, poisoned land outside of the Hotel Haflinger's walls.
It was tenuous, it was a lie, but damn if it wasn't a beautiful one.
A sharp shout and the crack of hoof against skull broke the spell booze and music held over our oasis.
Cherry and I, casually flirting with one another over our cutie marks, both stopped or verbal waltz to look over at the source of the sound
Daisy watched from a couch by the radio. Her eyes were cold, calculating, and carefully gaging what had just happened.
Fizzy stared down a swaying Two-Shot. Her eyes fixed and furious above her glasses held just a barest quiver of fear. She tried to figure out the unstable rattlesnake of a pony in front of her. It was a puzzle she wasn't prepared for.
Two-Shot held a stare of his own, despite his far past inebriated state. He did not speak to her, just looked at her while a trail of blood made its way from out his nose. Two-Shot looked like a stallion with no concern for himself; like someone ready to tackle a live grenade.
It struck me that with Fizzy involved grenades could very well be the outcome of a stare-down.
I stepped in to play the hapless idiot. This was my grenade to jump on. "What's going on, Fizz?"
The barrel of a gun pressed hard against my jaw, just at the top of my throat. It was very, very cold. I hadn't even seen Two-Shot move, nor the aura of his telekinesis light his horn before I felt the steel jam into me. I choked, sputtered, and went still.
"Stand the fuck down, wastelander," Two-Shot growled at me, his voice wasn't booming now, instead quiet and soft but edged as a razor blade.
"Hey, let's not doing anything rash here," I started, acutely aware of the growing pressure on my throat as Two-Shot dug the barrel deeper against my throat.
"Then don't do anything," Two-Shot cut me off before I could continue. His bloodshot eyes trained on me, twisting the barrel against my throat. "This is between me, and her, do you understand me, Curtain Call? I will blow your head off if you so much as move."
"And I will blow us all up if you try anything," Fizzy spoke before I could get a word in edgewise. A bundle of grenades bound by their stems floated in front of her, between the three of us.
The air was still. A wrenching tightness filled my chest. This time I didn't have an out. It was either Two-Shot's gun, or Fizzy's grenades. Both outcomes would have been sudden, but the fact was not solace. I gulped and silently prayed to Celestia, Luna, whoever would listen.
Two-Shot's eyes danced a furious jig, going from me, to the grenades, to Fizzy. Glassy and uncertain, they rolled about as I felt each rabid shift was drawing me closer to my last breath.
Fizzy held her clinical and disaffected. She showed no emotion to the matter at all, she was just as casual detonating all of us as she was hacking a terminal.
In the span of a second, I made peace with my life, and hoped that wherever ponies ended up after all was said and done was a better place than this.
The revolver clattered on the hardwood floor.
Two-Shot looked at the as though it burned him. He quivered; I could not tell if it was rage or fear. His wordless mouth hung open. A step back and his eyes darted from the gun to me, and then to Fizzy. His disbelief fell to rage. His death glare not on Fizzy or me, but on the gun.
"We're done here," Two-Shot's voice cracked, he turned away and trudged toward the stairs.
"Sleep wherever. I'm getting fucked up, don't bother me." Then he left, head down he stills shook.
Cherry and Daisy followed Two-Shot up the stairs. Cherry stopped and looked back at Fizzy and I. She mouthed "Thank you" and left into the shadows of the hotel.
A room on the top floor, off to the side, still had most of the comforts of the aged hotel. The bed was only partially rotted; the cracked cabinet still stood and still held a dress from long ago. The desk that sat against the wall was in the best shape of anything in this place. I dug through and took the bottle cap left behind. I played with the bath faucet, it belched silt filled, rusted water before it ran clear again. I drank. From the bedroom came a sound.
Fizzy sprawled herself out on the bed, claiming as much of it as she physically could. She stared at the wall.
"You alright?" I ventured, walking to the side of the bed.
She looked to me briefly but turned away. Her whole body rose and fell with a sigh. Her shoulder rolled an evasive shrug.
"Thank you."
I sat beside the bed and smiled. I couldn't believe she was thanking me. "I think you got that backwards, Fizzy. I'm the one that has to thank you. If it wasn't for that grenade stunt you pulled back there, I'd have a brand new superfluous hole in my head."
Fizzy pushed herself up to a sit. She hung her head, shaking it slowly. Her glasses sat askew on her muzzle. "It was not a stunt," she admitted in a subdued tone, opening her eyes to watch me out of their corners. "I would have killed us all."
The matter of fact tone struck me. I filled the air with a useless, "Well," and pondered the implications of Fizzy's statement. "I've thrown myself into worse," I admitted the fact. "But, uh, what exactly did he do anyways? I mean did he . . .?" I let the words trail off and hang in the air so she could fill the blank herself.
I got an expectant look from Fizzy for the few moments before she realized I was waiting for her to put it together.
"What? No!" she said, her head shaking hard enough to cause her mane to wobble. She let fly a torrent of "no"s. "He was trying to ask if," she stopped suddenly, and adjusted her glasses. "I just, I won't go into it."
The sudden refusal left me momentarily befuddled. I hummed, suspicious, but I nodded slowly. "That's okay?"
Fizzy sighed, eyes rolling backward. "Okay, okay, um, alright," she fumbled over the words, chewing on her lip. "I can't just give the information away. I just, maybe it'll be easier if I know more about you." She looked at me with sudden hope in her eyes and in the forced smile she wore. She was trying to shift the subject away from her.
I took the bait willingly. After all, I prefer to talk about myself than take a hoof to the jaw. "You just get comfortable, Fizzy, let me tell you a story."
I waited, pacing toward the door and back, part of it to give Fizadora a chance to settle and part to give me some time to find the story, myself. I stopped at the door and looked at the aging, cracked handrail, broken in places. My eyes closed of their own accord and somewhere I found a distant smile to add to the wistful look.
"I was born on the roadside to a caravan pony named Brightside. My father, Last Call, was her bodyguard."
"Romantic."
Fizzy's flat response left me windless. I shrugged and sallied onward, turning back into the room to continue.
"Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Being a foal, I wasn't too interested in asking those kinds of questions. Point is, I traveled along for the ride, all bundled up inside of the cart my mother pulled. I rode with junk and I rode with treasure, all depended on the pony that was buying. Saw a lot of a little world on that trade route."
Fizzy watched my slow sweep of the room. Her eyes were bagged and heavy. Still brilliant blue and big as saucers, but utterly exhausted. Still, she watched and listened. Despite her sarcasm, she was buying the performance.
"I got older, foals tending to do that, and as I did, my mother started up collecting books for me; old world, pre-war books from wherever she could, on whatever she could. I devoured them, mostly since there isn't a whole lot to do on the trails outside of moving forward and not dying. In the end, it was what got me through, those books."
"So why not a book cutie mark?"
"Suppose because I can't write. That and I started playing out the storybooks I read for the ponies on my family's route. Made them laugh, took their minds off of this shitstorm, and I liked that. It was good times."
I dropped down at the end of Fizzy's mattress. She moved to give me room.
"Then came the night we were salvaging up supply from a store up near the Whitehoof settlement. My father cracked the planks over the window so I could squeeze in. It was dark, very dark, and the must hanging in the air stank. Still, it was quiet and safe once I stomped out the roach or two that were living down there. Now, I had to sneak in because we couldn't get the door open, turned out that somepony had shoved a pile of furniture in front of the door. It took some time, but I got it cleared enough for my father to get in with me."
I stopped talking. My voice dropped, and I stared at the floor. I dug into places I generally didn't like going. The dramatic act was becoming swiftly real.
The bed shifted; Fizzy moving to get closer.
"The place had been the last stand of a pony back during the war. They must have set up before the bombs hit. I heard the twang and." I stopped again, it struck me again that I had not talked about that night for years. Taking a breath, I soldiered on.
"And then I heard the gun go off."
The dull feeling surprised me. I choked, and the memory welled up inside of me, but then it simply slipped away.
"I didn't see it, the shot that killed him. I only saw what was after. It was quick and I doubt he felt it, but it wasn't clean." My voice lost all tone or emotion, my head shook, disbelief at the disconnection I felt. "By Celestia, it was not clean."
A weight against my side woke me from the spell the past wove.
Fizzy hugged me.
Fizzy slipped back to the other side of the mattress. Her eyes apologetic and pitying.
"I'm sorry."
"It was long in the past," I told her, "I've had plenty of good times since then. Just get some sleep, Fizz. Don't go feeling sorry for me. I don't like that,"
"Then I'm not sorry, unless I should be sorry for being sorry in the first place." Fizzy's words were garbled by a long yawn. "Okay, now you want to know why I hit that stallion?"
I stopped in the doorway. "Not right now. I'll see you in the morning, Fizz."
I saw Daisy again while heading down the grand staircase to the foyer. She was by the liquor cabinet, nosing the last of the surviving bottles into place. I tried to be quiet, to stay under the sound of the morose jazz music coming from my radio. I stopped on the stair, and sat, and watched her as she went over the bottles. She was counting them, though only way I could tell was by the fact she was moving her mouth as she numbered. From my spot, I watched her as she counted, and slowly swayed to the music, her tail and flank bouncing in the slow time of the music.
"You can join in you know, or do you just like to watch?" Daisy's words jolted me upright. The coquettish grin and half-lidded eyes got me down the rest of the stairs.
I knew I was caught staring, and tried to laugh it off, strolling onto the landing with a light step. "Sorry," I said, "but when the show is that good, who am I to interrupt."
She laughed. It was a soft laugh, appreciative, but still condescending. She only looked at me through the corner of her eye, keeping her faux attention on the bottles. "I'm sorry for what he did. He's not normally like that."
"Yeah, well, that doesn't really lift my opinion of him," I spat with only a few gallons worth of spite and sarcasm. I walked up to her and looked to the racks of liquor, seeking something in the colorful bottles.
"He's under a lot of stress, and he's gone through a lot." He voice was quiet and soft, an old friend speaking through more wistful feelings than self-awareness. Her downcast gaze lifted to look at me. She shrugged with little more than a fatalistic smile on her muzzle. "I'm just trying to help him get by."
"We've all gone through a lot. Everypony has."
"I know, but you don't see how Two-Shot is making things better."
"How could he be making things better? You're all just holed up in here, surrounded by a mine field. I am looking, but I see no better."
Daisy stopped talking at my outburst. She sighed and turned away, heading to the radio. The music died with a tap of her hoof and her head hung, her tail drooped and her dark mane hung low. "You know what it's like out there." She spoke from experience. "You've seen what it's like. You can't tell me it's a good place. I'm sure you killed somepony before, same with your marefriend there. Same with me, and with Two-Shot. Cherry's about the only pony I've known who hasn't taken a life or done something they know is wrong."
Daisy turned back to me, her right eye covered by her mane, her left one staring deeper into me than comfortable. "But since I joined Two-Shot and we shacked up here I haven't had to kill. We live here. We're not just surviving like everypony else, we're safe and happy here. For Celestia's sake, Curtain Call, we were laughing and joking, you were laughing and joking, and we do that every day. How many other ponies can say that?"
She got close to me, nose to nose, staring me in the eye. "How many?" she jabbed my chest with her hoof with each word.
I searched for an answer. "Tenpony Tower? Friendship City? They're both doing well. Least that's what the radio says."
"Tenpony?" Daisy scoffed, wheeling around to walk away from me. Her tail struck my face like a whip. "They're up their own asses and only give a shit about themselves. Think you would've gotten a better reception there than you got from us?"
"Yeah, yeah. Bad example and I should feel bad for it." I sighed and leaned my head back to look to the ceiling for answers. "That doesn't change Friendship City."
"Don't suspect things are perfect there either. Two-Shot is just another pony. He has his own demons, but he's helped me, and he's helped Cherry, and he's helped you and Fizzy."
I was sour, she was right, but I didn't have to feel happy about it. I gritted my teeth and stared at the ceiling.
Daisy's hoof fell against my chest, this time she wasn't jabbing me. She looked at me and there was a small flare of hope in her eyes.
"Find it in you to forgive him, please," she asked. "If more ponies could do that, maybe things wouldn't be so bad. We've all done bad things. We just want to stay one step ahead of ourselves."
She turned from me, and head to the stairs. Up and away, she went into the darkness of the hotel beyond. Off to find Two-Shot for her own reasons, for comfort or for care. Me, I was left sitting alone in the lobby.
The lobby's light was low, provided by some salvaged spark batteries running into the dusty chandelier that once blazed brightly above the wealthy ponies of the past. I looked up at the intermittent twinkling lights and tried to place myself in this place so long ago. Closing my eyes, I smiled at the thought of talking, laughing, drinking and a life that didn't involve running or scraping to get by. I could see myself, walking down those stairs in another time, dressed well, knowing the right ponies, fresh off of a stage tour of Equestria. Talking craft with fellow actors, talking gigs with the movers and shakers, taking fun with the mares. To live in that world was to be blessed by Celestia herself.
"Stop fantasizing, you stupid foal. This ain't the past, but if you think about it, you ain't gonna have a future anyways."
I stared at the glowing dial of the radio. The dial was reticent.
"Don't stand there like a fucking idiot."
The snarl of the voice took my attention. I sat and, lacking anypony else to look toward, kept my eye on the radio that the voice came from. "What is it you want?" I asked in a tone to suggest he wasn't wanted at this moment.
The voice didn't take, or refuse, the hint. "I want to see you make it through this shitstorm alive. I'm here to help you, whether you like it or not."
I looked around with a hope that somebody else would walk in. But it was just me and Radio.
"Okay, okay. You want to help. So help. What've you got for me?"
The voice laughed. "Finally he gets it. First things first. Watch yourself around this Two-Shot pony. Don't buy into the crap that whore was spitting at you. She's his lover, she'll lie."
"Now you don't know that, and she does have a point. He took me and Fizz in when he could've just killed us."
Another strident laugh came from the radio. "What the fuck does that got to do with anything? Then? Now? Later? Ain't none of that matters, Red, cause where I come from, dead is dead, and you come from the same place. He's a killer and you know it. Not a matter of if, just when."
"So what if he is?" I debated back with half a heart. "I've killed too. That makes me a danger?"
"Yeah, yeah it does." The voice didn't even pause. "All the more reason you should watch this pony. It don't take much to squeeze a trigger. And if it ain't him, it'll be that cold blooded bitch."
I snorted, the disgust creeping on my muzzle was evident. "We've been down this road before, Radio. Fizz was willing to blow herself up so Two-Shot would back down. I think that goes a ways there."
"And you call yourself a good judge of character. Wake up and realize you're a commodity at best, not a friend. She was just protecting herself. She'd have gone for the bombs one way or the other. You were just a sap that stuck his head in where it wasn't needed."
"You don't know that."
"Don't I? Red, even at best, none of us knows what she was thinking. The thing about it is that my train of thought tends to be heading for the right station. You and I both know that. So stop kidding yourself. You went and opened up your whiny little can of worms and she didn't give you back squat."
"Hey, she hugged me," in the world of defenses, this was not the best of them, but I needed something to hold onto. "She's not good with words, at least not the right ones. She knows it, and she told me. That's all. You're looking too far into it."
The radio went silent for a moment. I grinned like a triumphant foal. Felt a lot better to beat the radio with words rather than my hooves.
"Wipe that stupid smirk off your face."
That smirk was wiped. I stood, started to stamp toward the radio, and stopped when I realized how dumb it was to try and intimidate an inanimate object I was reflecting on. I flopped my rump to the floor and stared.
"So maybe she ain't a demon in disguise. That doesn't mean you're any good to her or anypony else. Fact is I wonder why you're even kidding yourself about it all."
I frowned, thrown off track by the radio pony's words. "Kidding myself how?"
A snort, a belly laugh burbled over the airwaves. "Like I was trying to tell you yesterday, you're a nothing, a nopony. You're a bruiser who can talk a good game, but that's it, and it don't go far. You caught some ponies unaware once, but even a filly looking junkie like Two-Shot can outclass you in a real fight."
"Hey now," I stood back up, scowled at the radio, "I'm doing the best with what I'm good at. I never had to wave a gun around before, bullets are better off as barter anyways. At least I never chance running out. I'll always have a way of fighting if I need it."
"Take another bullet to the head and we'll see how well that, and you, stands up. Don't you forget your place in this world; a scavenger rat picking through junk. Just a parasite feeding off old world refuse. You ain't a guard like your daddy, and you ain't a trader like your mama. Course maybe it's better you haven't done shit. After all, all it got them was dead. Please, you're only walking with that unicorn because you have nothing else to do. You can't even find your own goal, just feed off of others. Course, even before that you fed off others."
"I'm doing some good. I helped Fizzy get her information. I sold goods to Summer Bounty. Ponies use the things I find and pack away. If it wasn't for that, Fizzy and I would never have killed that manticore. And all I want to do is make ponies happy. Make this place a little better for them. Doesn't matter if it's in little ways."
"You sleep better at night when you tell yourself that? Does it make a good little foal's tale? Or is this part of your comedy line? The wannabe entertainer. A social butterfly living in the middle of a dead zone. You're a living joke but I don't hear anypony laughing. Not anymore, at least."
I snapped. "You just fuck right off, whoever you are. You don't know a damn thing. I lost it all, sure, but maybe that kick in the teeth is what I needed. Daisy's right, Two-Shot, psycho prick that he is, is doing something. Fizzy's doing whatever it is she's doing with that soda. So am I even if I don't exactly know what it is yet. I'll find something." I shouted at the radio. The rage was impotent, useless against an inanimate object, but Luna be praised was it cathartic. Though my eye twitched a bit, the grin on my muzzle ran as wide as the day is long.
"It'll never make good."
My smile disappeared, the world shrank to the size of a pinprick, and I stared at the radio. It was just me and it. Together we danced inside my mind. Hatred and doubt and bitter memories dragged me into a pit inside myself. Inside, I called for help.
"Am I interrupting anything?"
The voice was sweet and rang with laughter from above me. It reached deep into the mired swamp that swallowed me and pulled me up for air. I was saved by that voice, that interruption.
Cherry Pop watched, forelegs on the banister, looking down at me. "It's okay, I won't tell a soul. I promise."
I looked at the radio. I looked back at Cherry. The realization dawned on me. I was okay, it was okay.
"I'm not crazy," my voice came out something like a squeak and a sigh. "It's just how I think."
Cherry just laughed and radiated warmth through her smile. "I believe you," she assured me. Slipping from the banister, she started down the stairs. "I didn't hear a thing, okay? But you got to promise me something in return. You can do that, can't you?" Her hushed voice teased with secrets she wanted to share.
I stood for a moment and just watched her. She had grace, the light steps that brought her down the stair and the fluid way she walked up to me. She stopped a hair's breadth from me.
I took a breath and felt myself smile. "Depends on what you want," I told her in a conspiratorial whisper.
"I want to take a look at those bandages you're wearing." She laughed again, a musical tone interrupted by her sticking her tongue out at me. She turned away, walking back up the stairway. "I have medical supplies in my room. Your friend did some good basic work, but I'm going to bet you need a real medical pony to look at that injury."
The mare was a medic, that's all. I laughed and closed my eyes. Since I stopped hurting, I had not even figured myself injured anymore. Suppose I still was. I followed her up the stairs, down the decaying hall and its faded opulence, to what I suspected was were she slept when Two-Shot wasn't involved.
The room was large. The bed, a wide one whose mattress hadn't seemed to lose any of its plushness over the years, took up most of the room. The bed was inviting, so I sat at the foot, sinking into the old springs. To my side, by the door, was an old armoire, the door was barely askew.
I leaned to see inside, a yellow medical kit propped the old door.
A faint pink glow surrounded my head and lifted my hard hat. Cherry shushed me before I could speak. The pink glow sat aside my hard hat and enveloped the magic bandages. The strips stung as they were slowly peeled from around my crown.
I winced and found the ground rushing up at me. My legs locked in place to avoid slamming to the floor.
"Yeah, you were hit hard weren't you?" Cherry commented. She stood close enough I could feel her breath on me. "I'm lucky it was just blunt force trauma, if the bullet hadn't been deflected, I wouldn't have you here."
My eyebrows rose. I worked a smile on my face. "I think I can consider myself lucky, too. But it's starting to hurt with you poking it like that. Starting to hurt a lot."
Cherry laughed. It seemed to be a recurring theme with the pink mare. Her horn was glowing again, this time drawing an old kit bag to the bedside. The kit opened, a potion floated out, uncorked of its own accord, and summarily planted itself in my mouth. "Drink. I'll have you right as rain soon as you know."
I drank; it wasn't as though I had choice in the matter. The potion was heady, with a smoky flavor that filled me with a warm numbness. The warmth grew inside of my, radiating from my stomach, out to my limbs. I felt heavy and tired, the world grew dim but more peaceful than I could ever imagine.
I woke up with a start, snorting and falling face first on the floor. More than anything was the lack of feeling. I had pushed aside a dull, throbbing pain for the past day, through shooting and shouting, it hadn't dulled, the rest of me had. "Good fucking morning, Equestria," I said with a whistle, blinking at the floorboards.
"You weren't out for long, silly," Cherry's voice came from the bed. I peered over it to see her on the other side. "I just needed you to stay still long enough so I could make sure the healing magic worked."
Shaking myself off, I got to my hooves. "I feel great; better than I have in a while." I looked myself over, spinning in place. "I take it removing my barding was for entirely important reasons?"
"I had to check for injury," Cherry said with a pair of the largest, fake innocence having eyes I had ever seen. "I still had fun doing it, though."
I chuckled, flattery works on my as well as any other pony. "Well I'm glad you enjoyed the show," I told her. "Thanks, though, I think the shot had taken a lot out of me. More than I thought, at least. You did me a big favor."
"You're patched up, but you're still hurting," Cherry's voice took a dip to private softness. She crossed the room in long strides to push the door shut. "I know about pain, Curtain Call, and I saw yours."
"I'm not hurting, I was the gunshot. That's all," I tried to shake the unicorn's attention. My barding lay on the ground not far away. I went to go get it, slip it back on and slip away.
"Gunshots don't make a pony give themselves speeches." She was beside me, putting her hoof on my barding.
I couldn't bring myself to simply shove her aside and claim it. Not after what she'd done for me. Instead, I stuck a humor coat over my excuses. "That one did. Special enchanted bullet."
Cherry shaking her head told me she wasn't about to buy that line. Her smile and her laugh told me she liked it all the same. "Come on," she said in a quiet voice, slipping by me, brushing against me as she passed. "Let's have a drink. To your health."
"You're not going to let me leave, are you?"
The floating bottle pouring into a glass gave me more answer than her words ever could. The glass pushed against me until I was against a desk. Relenting, I sipped from the glass. The drink was champagne. It was flat.
"You don't love her, I can tell."
I nearly sneezed out my champagne. "Wait what?"
"Fizadora," Cherry clarified. "You don't love her. You care about her, or you need her for something, but you don't love her."
"When did this become ponies take turns telling me what I think?" I wondered aloud, shooting a narrow look of warning toward my doctor turned psychologist.
"Am I wrong?"
I was beginning to hate that question very much. "No," I admitted, with a heavy sigh, "No. You're right about. I need her. She's literally the only thing I have going for me right now."
Cherry asked me how. That got me talking. I gave her the run down of the past few days. The raiders, the attack on my home, how letting one of them live brought fire and wrath upon my little corner of life, I told her all of it. I explained, and as I did I realized, that Fizzy and her soda were what I had to keep myself sane. It was dying in Manehattan, or following a mare I didn't know on some excursion I could only hope brought something better than the dying option offered.
When I finished, Cherry was at the desk with me. She finished her drink and started affixing me with the most sympathetic look I had gotten in ages. All I had in return was a shrug and a sheepish grin.
"We all have our needs, Curtain Call," Cherry told me, looking down at her glass with a distant, thoughtful eye. "It's been good since we came here. I haven't gotten to help many ponies, but we have other things to keep us busy. It may not look like much, but I've found what I need in this world. What about you, though. Is there anypony special out there? A mare that runs through your thoughts before you go to sleep?"
Her smile was disarming. "There's one, Summer Bounty. As if her name helps you. She's a trader, traveling. For a long, long time she was the only pony I saw regularly. We get along, and she's one of the prettiest mares I've ever had the pleasure to know. Sorry, I'll stop before I gush."
"No, don't. Tell me about her."
"Tell you? Smart, funny, long legs, beautiful mane, these big, big eyes you can get lost in, and a steady trade route. Not much more you could ask for in a mare than that."
"That it?" Cherry asked. She moved around the table to sidle against me, leaning in.
I closed my eyes and felt the weight against me; it made me smile. "One of those few sunny spots in life, having Summer's caravan show up. I never slept with her, but, you know." I laughed a quiet laugh, stopped short by Cherry nuzzling my neck.
"You're a terrible liar, Curtain Call," Cherry spoke in a whisper. She was right, and I knew it as much as she did.
I pulled away, looked away from Cherry. "That transparent?"
Cherry's smile was soft and warm but her eyes were sharp. "As crystal. You don't have to mention the one you love. I know when pain is too much. When we hurt, we can curl away and try to hide it all. But it doesn't stop. It never does."
I looked back up to Cherry. She moved closer.
"We still have our needs. Those are always with us."
"I know we do."
Cherry pulled from me, heading toward the bed. I didn't resist her. "Come over here, Curtain Call. Just think of her. We need this night. It'll be magic."
I did.
It wasn't.
I closed the door to Cherry's room behind me as quietly as I could. She fell asleep, but for as tired as I was, I couldn't bring myself to nod off. I took to wandering the hotel once more. Somehow I hoped that the old walls would bring me some sort of peace of mind.
I was not so lucky.
Two-Shot walked out from Fizzy's room. He looked at me with deep-bagged eyes, stared at me with a flat, dead look. a look that boiled my blood.
Everything he's already done, he had to go in there now. I charged the unicorn, gun at his side or not, I was going to beat him senseless. He had threatened me, hurt Fizzy, and Celestia knows what now.
I ran up to him, but then stopped. There wasn't any fight in him, he would have just taken the beating and it wouldn't have mattered. Something else in his eyes told me he had been beaten enough.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing? Haven't you done enough? Have to wait until I'm gone to sneak in there? What'd you do to her?" I hissed through my teeth, I wasn't going to kill him, but he wasn't going to just walk away.
He answered, looking me in the eye, only giving a single nod into the room.
Fizzy slept on the bed, a small ball lay beside her, and a saddlebag that looked different from either of ours. She was snoring.
"We spoke, and I gave her what help I could. That is all. I've done less than you, tonight."
I hadn't thought Cherry and I were that loud.
"So what?" I asked, backing from the smaller unicorn and looking at him. "Going to kill me for breaking one of your rules? Going to kill her?" I expected the shot, waited for it.
"No," he spoke in a whisper. "It was her choice as much as yours, and I'm no position to judge."
His attention shifted toward the end of the hallway. "I need a spotter." The unicorn didn't phrase it as such, but I can tell a request when I hear one. I followed him down the hallway. We walked in silence.
The night air was warm and dark. In the distance was the faint glow of Tenpony Tower. There was, out on the old bridge with its maze of carts and wreckage, the lights of multiple fires. They flickered and danced. Inviting even if I knew they were surrounded by ponies that wanted to wear my head as a hat.
Two-Shot nosed open a long case, and the faint aura of his telekinesis floated up a sizeable rifle. A small pair of binoculars floated out after the rifle.
It bounced off my chest and I bobbled it in my hooves for a moment before I managed to balance it well enough, taking a seat and peering out at the crumbled tomb of a city I planned to leave behind.
"The blue earth pony is the one that wants you dead?" Two-Shot asked me while he floated the rifle into position, lining the scope with his eye. He didn't have the slur, or the boisterous sound to him anymore. His voice was quiet, velvet soft, and hollow.
"His name is Scorch. That's what I heard, at least. I killed some of his gang and now he wants me dead." I looked out through my binoculars. I swept what part of the larger thoroughfare that I could, and then up toward those little fires. I was hunting for any signs of pony.
"Never got his name, but I don't think he likes you any better for coming in here. He's tried to take me a few times. Don't look at me like that, watch their camps, you're not the only pony who can make enemies."
I shook my head and went back to looking. "So you've killed some of his gang too? Maybe we should feel bad for him." I spotted a raider split from the camps. "There's one right over there, little to your left. Green mare, earth pony."
The rifle split the night. The crack echoed off the remnant building rubble and rang in my ears.
"Fuckmothering Luna that was loud," I I nearly dropped the binoculars. "Don't they hear that?"
Two-Shot hadn't blinked. "The corpses don't hear it, the others have the echoes to throw them off." He spoke matter of fact as he looked for his next shot.
A pair of ponies, wearing dark barding to keep their lighter coats from being noticed, went to go investigate their fallen comrade. "Two more on their way. Just off to the right of the dead one, just behind a cart, only-"
One of the pair jerked back as the thunderous report of the gun filled the air. The other stared in a panic.He shook in his barding, stumbled away from the other dead ganger and into the open.
He wasn't afraid for long.
"Well," I said, watching the pony lay in the road, "That's three less ponies of his to deal with."
"Not ponies."
I looked at Two-Shot for clarity.
"Corpses."
"Isn't that a little morbid?" I asked, looking back over the bridge. One pony started to move, but very quickly got savvy enough to duck out of sight. I imagined Scorch was down there, playing with fire, coaching his gang even as we picked them off.
"They were dead as soon as my attention was drawn to them. Crosshairs and bullets are just formality. They have to be, I never direct my gun at anypony I was not going to kill."
The air suddenly felt heavy and the night oppressive. I looked down at the shorter unicorn. "Is that so?" I inquired. I tried to keep the chill out of my voice; I think I failed.
Two-Shot paused; he looked up at me with a pure hatred in his eyes. Even so, none of that anger was directed at me. "I don't like killing ponies. Killing those who wish death on themselves does well enough."
He sniffed the air. "There was one," He admitted.
"Who?" I asked, unnecessarily quiet. There was little point to watching the gangers out on the bridge, but I kept it up anyways, looking over their empty little fires.
"Steel ranger. His name was Cinnamon Stripe. The only one I have killed I could call a real pony."
"What made him so-"
"That is all I will speak of him."
I looked from the binoculars to the unicorn by my side, focused through the scope of his rifle. "What about Cherry Pop and Daisy?" I asked, hoping that was a safer avenue for conversation. "I didn't expect Cherry to be a doctor." I hadn't expected a lot out of Cherry, but surprises abound.
Two-Shot laughed, but I use the term loosely. It was a short little rabid chuckle. Not at all like the big guffaws of the early evening. "I don't fuck just any mare. Cherry Pop is a good lay, but she's a better doctor. Found her after her little town was wiped off the map by a gang further North. She was their medic, unique healing style she has, though. So she came."
"Yeah, unique," I said with small, painful little laugh. "What about Daisy?" I wanted to keep topics moving, and off of Cherry. Something about Two-Shot grinning like he was unsettled me.
"Daisy was a merc, like me. We worked together for a while, running guns for some ponies. You should see her when she has her battle saddle on." Two-Shot smiled again, this time it was a little less trigger happy and more hopeful. I liked the change.
"I wanted to retire. I wasn't getting anywhere as a merc. I was hoping it was going to be protecting ponies and saving the day for a bit of scratch to get by. I was a foal back then. Didn't think about the reality. My final job was putting a hole in the head of that Steel Ranger. Once that was done, so was I. I put word through old contacts to find Daisy and we talked it over. Convinced her to come with me, set a place up for ourselves and anypony who wanted to escape. Found this place, set up, never looked back."
I thought for a moment, and reflected on Two-Shot. "You know," I told him, "You're awfully somber for a pony who has done all they set out to do."
Two-Shot's laughter bubbled with bitter derision. "Have I?"
"I fuck, drink, and suck up as much steady as Cherry can make. Not a life worth shit in the end. No life is, so what's the point of liking it? You can't change this place. You can't make it all better. There's a. . .There's a sadness in this world. It's like those clouds. Hanging over everypony. Nothing we can do but scrape up what little pleasure we can get and hoarding like a dragon. Did I do all I set out do? Yeah. Is it anything to be happy about? Fuck no."
I hummed and finally sat the binoculars aside. I stopped using them a while back. "I can't say you're wrong," I admitted and turned back towards the way in.
Two-Shot didn't move, staying still as a statue with his rifle hovering at his side. The world was dust and corpses to him.
I had played the part he pulled me out here to play. It was time to disappear again. "Thank you again, for letting us spend the night, and for helping us on the bridge. You made our world a little better. Maybe I can pay you back somehow. Maybe I can make yours better."
I went inside, I collapsed beside the bed in Fizzy's room. I hadn't got a response from Two-Shot, and truth is, I didn't need to.
I just needed to hear myself say those words.
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