Fallout Equestria: Fallen Angels

by Tetragrammaton

Chapter V: Grounded

Ouch!

Dull pain was the first thing I felt as I came to life again. I was lying on something soft, a cloud maybe, and the sensation around my chest told me that I wasn't wearing a uniform or anything at all. Where... what was this place? Finally I opened my eyes and found myself in a dusty room full of tables and cabinets with equally dusty device-thingies on them, myself lying in a bed, an hospital bed if I wasn't mistaken. Some lights were on at the apparatus next to me, hold together by nothing but some duct tape, but the line it showed didn't move.

What had happened? Who...
Sunshine!
That featherbrain, that... bitch had shot me with my own gun!

So this was the Everafter.
I had to admit, I expected it to be less dusty and a little more cloudy just like Lunar Rock.
Well, I guess it could have been worse, so I decided to have a look around, since I was dead, to find out what the Everhafter had to offer. What could go wrong?
I sat up, stretching my wings and bounced out of the bed.

And then the world was spinning, spinning again and again and again
and then one last time and I was lying on the floor.
I heaved myself up and focused on standing for a start.

I succeeded and walked slowly through a corridor of tables and towards the door, but I stopped abruptly as a bottle of water along with some tumblers were sweeped away by one of my wings and were shattered on the floor. Looking back over my shoulder I saw both my dishevelled wings sticking out my trunk, reaching from one end of the path to the other and beyond, since the extremities were sticking out not quite horizontally.
No no no no, not this and not just yet! Wingboners were awkward, humiliating and very impractical given my current situation. And there was only one way to remove them...

I flapped my wings for more than two minutes and tried to persuade them to lay themselves back to my body.
Flapping them at all wasn't easy considering them being all sleepy.

Speaking of sleep, I had obviously fallen asleep while standing there because as I reopened my eyes I was lying on the bed again, my uniform still missing but fortunately my wings had returned to be fully under my control again.
After another attempt of leaving the bed and another fall flat on the face I was struck by the thought that this whole everafter-world was actually some kind of hell, a world of meaningless trials I would have to relive until the end of time, as repentance for a life corrupted by sin.

The sound of a closing door ended my thinking about sin and purpose.
Wherever I was, I wasn't alone.
I couldn't see the entering pony since I was lying on the floor until its head was coming around the corner, revealing a yellow unicorn mare with a red mane. She stared blankly at my empty bed and was about to leave again as her eyes moved downwards and spotted me.

"By Celestia, you're out of bed! Again?!" she yelled, her voice roaring like a vertibuck's storm clouds inside my head. I preferred to chat at eye level, so I raised again.
Or tried to raise, also again. The world around me was slipping away and darkness surrounded me, only the mare's voice remained.
"Duct Tape warned me about poultry like you being..."
And then it faded as well.
Damn this hell or everafter or whatever!

I could hear low voices as I woke from my unconsciousness for the third time.
Okay, easy now, Feather, you don't want to break your face by falling on it, do you?

So I slowly opened my eyes and saw the yellow unicorn standing at a table at the further end of the room, I could see her cutie mark, needle and thread, and some bottles were floating in front of her, wrapped in a field of light yellow of magic.
Unicorn magic was fascinating. If I recall correctly I hadn't ever seen magic before, the Thunderhead unicorns yes, but I had never seen them doing actual magic. A sudden cough right next to me made me spin around and as I the blurring faded I looked into the eyes of an elderly brow unicorn stallion, his grayed mane partially covering his big glasses.
I couldn't resist the urge to jump up, bolt towards a corner and cowering there without saying anything.

"Hello." the stallion said kindly and raised his hoof, maybe a sign of kindness. He seemed not to be displeased or even surprised at my reaction.

"H-hello." I answered, still cowering in my corner.

"There's nothing for you to worry about." he said, still smiling. "We don't want to harm you. I'm Duct Tape, the local doctor, I've been patching you up for the last couple of days." The mare at the other end of the room coughed admonishingly. "Together with my faithful assistant, Suture, of course."

His name wasn't inspiring any confidence, what kind of doctor was named Duct Tape?

"What's your name?"

"I'm Whirling Feather, Second Lieutenant of the Grand Pegasus Enclave military of Lunar Rock, ID 23-6..."

"Suture, it's Whirling Feather!" the elderly pony called out to his assistant, who was writing something down onto a piece of paper, thereby stifling me. "You're asking yourself what has happened in the last days, don't you?" Duct Tape asked and indicated to me that I could safely leave my corner. I nodded, but stayed put.

"As you wish. So, you're not dead, even if you might feel so. Oh, and don't worry, the heart rate monitor over there has stopped working a long time ago." So, not dead. Kind of positive, wasn't it? "As far as I can tell, somepony hit your face with his or her bare hooves and dropped a wagon on you, could have been the other way round as well, I can't say for sure."

Pictures of the crash flashed through my mind. The pilot, blood...

"Clam down, Whirling Feather!" Duct Tape called out through my vail of tears and painful memories, the stallion and the yellow unicorn kneeling by my side.

"I didn't thought pegasusses to be so emotional." Suture whispered while stroking my mane. "I mean she said it herself, she's in the military. I would expect her to be... a little more stable, harder, you know?"

"Don't you see how young she is? She's barely a mare. I think she flew off, became a Dashite and stuff, and they sent a death squad after her, hence the injuries at her wings and body, the getaway must have caused them. The only thing I am surprised at is: why does she still have her cutie mark or why is she still alive? As far as I know there're two punishments for becoming a Dashite in the Enclave: branding or death. But she didn't suffer from any of it. She has some bruises and a concussion, nothing else."

"Why don't we asked her ourselves?" Suture asked abruptly as she noticed that I had stopped whimpering a while ago and was listening to them.
Those ponies knew a lot about Dashites...
"Come on, Whirling Feather, tell us: Why did you flee the Enclave?"

"I didn't flee..."

"Okay, okay. Why did you leave the Enclave? Have you done something wrong, couldn't you agree with their politics or...? "

"I'm no Dashite."

"Or did you... what?" Both unicorns looked at me in bewilderment. "Come again, please."

"I. Am. No. Dashite." I answered, making pauses between each of the words. Why they had such a hard time to get it?

"Well, then..." the stallion and the mare bandied looks again. "It's just very... odd to find an enclave pegasus, injured and alone, down here. If they come down here, the Enclave usually sends nearly a dozen pegasi, power armored and with heavy weapons, never a single mare without any firearms worth mentioning."

Pffh. I had had a firearm worth mentioing, "had" being the operative word, until Sunshine took it away from me. Wait...

"Duct Tape, were there any other pegasi with me? Some with power armor or an orange mare?"

"I'm afraid no." he answered. "We've got only you. The buck who has brought you here said that there wasn't anypony else but you."

"Brought me here? From where?" If I could find out where I had been knocked out I track the others and do... something. We would figure something out.

"Many, many miles south of this place. Or west. Could have been east as well, I don't know. In the middle of nowhere at least. You want to talk to Angel, I'm certain. He can tell you more about it for sure."

"And who's Angel?" I asked, knowing the answer I would get.

"The buck who brought you here. He came with a caravan from Fillydelphia, picked you up on his way. Don't ask me why he did it, it is not something usual in the wasteland, but wonders never cease. You should really talk to him, if only to thank him."

I intended to do that. If this buck knew where to find the others I could return to my team, if they were still alive... Darn, Feather! Of course they were alive, at least some... don't think about it!

"Can I leave without getting knocked sideways again?"

"I think you can, but take it easy. We would have let you out yesterday already, but no, you had to give your wings a whirl. So if you decide to leave your corner I'll give you one last syringe for your muscular stabilization and you're free to go."

I moved hesitantly towards the brown stallion, who had levitated a small syringe off one of the surrounding tables and was currently floating in front of his narrow eyes, perhaps to read the label.
Then he took a step towards me and plunged the needle into my foreleg I had hold out to him.
I hated needles and syringes in particular, no idea why, but this time I could resist the urge to bolt away again.

"What do you charge for... all this?" I asked while he was giving a last shot to my wings.

"Normally 75 for the initial treatment, 100 for accommodation, 50 for not letting you starve while you were unconscious, 125 for medical treatment, 25 of it for the shots now, and another 50 for the painkillers." he said while Suture levitating a small bottle of pills towards me.
425... whatever.

"I'm afraid I don't exactly have..."

"Don't worry, my dear." the mare interrupted me, the pills floating in front of my face. "Take those for a few days, in the morning and in the evening, and there shouldn't be any problems. Angel has picked up the bill already. He seems to see something in you obviously, consider yourself lucky. "

After finishing my last treatment, Duct Tape retired to his so called office and Suture directed my to the door and the stallion's voice sounded from his room: "One last time, Whirling Feather: no fast movement, no flying, don't drink anything alcoholic and no drugs, except for the ones we gave you, understood?"

Who did he take me for? Some kind of drug fiend?
I turned to retort, but this obviously counted towards the "fast motion" counter and while I felt dizzy again, Suture muttered "He told you so." opened the door with her magic and shoved me out of it.
"Welcome to Springmare, try not to break something."

If I hadn't been at the surface and even inside a surface village not long ago, the culture shock would have sent me back into the clinic behind me immediately. Unlike the Enclave's dwelling houses, most of them clean and recognizable as such, the local buildings mainly consisted of rubble and pre-war ruins. Even calling those houses "makeshift" would have been an euphemism. "Collapsing" would be more fitting. Back home those constructs would be used as rain shelter, if used at all. The "clinic" behind me was built halfway into the hill it was standing on, the metallic catwalk I was standing on now led down to a big puddle, a well maybe.

I descended to the ground and then there were ponies. No pegasi, only earth ponies and unicorns, all of them filthy and pinched with hunger to some degree, but not as desperate as I would have expected given their situation. Maybe everything wasn't as terrible down here as I had imagined.
While I was strolling around I bumped into a couple of ponies, arguing about something. Or the dark pink mare was angered because of me bumping in.

"I'm sorry..." I said, shrinking before glare.

"Use your eyes!" the mare yelled at me, despite the fact I was standing right in front of her.

"I'm so sorry, it was my fault..."

"You're damn right, it was your fault. Haven't you seen this heap of rubbish for like the second billionth time, Mare Head in the Air?" The dark pink pony approached me in a threatening manner, her nose almost hitting mine.

"Please calm down, honey." the accompanying buck intervened and separated the mare from me, I thanked Celestia for his intervention. "That's the new one for sure, the one who had come here with that caravan."

"The turkey?"

"Yes, the turkey, honey."

She belched and turned around. "I hope she'll be gone soon, those turkeys just spell trouble." I remembered another surface dweller saying this. "Have fun with the newcomer, I'll be waiting at home!"

"I'm very sorry you had to meet her in this condition." the buck said apologetically as his associate was out of sight. Luna, this mare had creeped me out more than all the stories about Nightmare Moon combined!
Okay, maybe not all... but some of them!
"Grape can be... difficult to handle if she's drunk like this."

Drunk? She didn't seem drunk.

"Don't worry about her, I'll handle her, she won't stomp you even if her eyes may have promised it to you. But I have no manners. You have to be the new Dashite in town, aren't you?"

This again?
"I'm no Dashite."

"But... you're a pegasus!" He craned his neck and I spread a wing to confirm his statement. "And you're enclave."
I nodded and could nearly hear him thinking. "Whatever." he said suddenly. "Main point is that you're here and unhurt, relative." he added referring to my still battered body. "I think ol' Tape has patched you all up."

I nodded again. As best as he could, I guessed.

"I'm looking for Angel." I said bluntly, my dialogue partner looked at me blankly. "The stallion who had brought me here. The caravan pony."

"Oh, yeah, that weird guy. This way." the buck pointed a hoof to the left. "They camp next to their brahmins mostly, but if he isn't there he will be at the hotel for sure. This way," A hoof to the right. "You can't miss it, big building, reading "Hotel"."

"Thank you for the information." I said, sweeping a curtsey. "Have a nice day."

He dropped one too, obviously missing the point, said good bye and walked away, following his associate or friend.
So, first stop: brahmin pen, whatever I would happen to be...

Nopony was at the camp and the pen itself wasn't... impressive: it was just a pen and some strange dark red rocks were lying inside. Why did those ponies need a pen at all? During my time at the surface, maybe a day if everything was added up, I hadn't seen any kind of animal.I doubted they had survived at all. Who would built bomb shelters for animals? I shook my head, it was pointless to think about animals now, I had to find this Angel buck and therefore I had to fly... walk over to the hotel. Since the night was drawing near two questions crossed my mind, next to the leading question how I could find my team: where would I sleep tonight and, more pressing, what would I eat before? Duct Tape and Suture had fed me somehow, but hearing my stomach growling I knew it hadn't been very substantial. But even if this village would have a grocery, I didn't own anything to offer in return, even my uniform had got lost.

Whatever the "hotel" had been before the war, now the only thing it had in common with an enclave hotel, despite its decay, was the sign. But the "O" was dangling already, it would hold on for much longer and the building would turn into a htel, that would be by all means more appropriate. How did this thing obtained the label hotel at all?

It had looked bigger from afar, but now I was seeing it was just a ordinary two-storied building, looking similar to the clinic, but there was a sign that read "hotel/restaurant" in case anypony missed the big sign above. So, a restaurant too? I stood in front of the door, staggering about how to enter. It was still the first time I ever entered a room full of possibly drunk surface dwellers, alone and unarmed, who weren't paid for not harm me...

Get a hold of yourself, Feather! You're no foal that is scared of walking into a bar anymore. Okay, take a breath, smooth down your mane, lay back your wings, chin up, chest out, don't show any weakness!

I entered the building and my oh so confident entrance was stopped dead in its tracks as I was greeted by a booming noise and a bottle. The first nearly knocked me over, but fortunately I could evade the last and it cut its way into the night. I shouldn't move that fast, he said.

Something was happening inside the hotel, something best described as a bar fight: ponies, unicorns and earth ponies alike, stuck in a heap of, well, other ponies, beating each other with hooves and bottles. The landlord, a mustard colored stallion with a beer tap cutie mark, stood at the furthest end of his bar, protecting a pile of bottles with his own body. For a while I just watched the brawl with my mouth agape, it was kind of fascinating, but then somepony prodded me, I turned left, slowly this time and looked straight in the face of a young blue mare.

"Welcome to Springmare's "Watering Place", the nicest source of relaxation and cold drinks in 100 square kilometers. I'm Shot Glass, what can I do for you, Sweetheart?"

I looked at her for about ten seconds before answering. She was very close.

I muttered something she apparently understood as "I'm searching for Angel.", she pulled me away from the fight and towards a side room's door.
As she opened it and had shoved me inside my gaze fell onto a light grew unicorn stallion sitting lonely at a small table, his blue striped mane hanging down and hiding a glass of a transparent liquid.

"Angel, you've got a visitor!" Shot Glass called out to him.

"Who is it?" he asked, not looking up from his drink.

"The new Dashitesses... the one with the wings." the mare said bluntly, taking away the empty glasses and left the room.

"I am not a Dashite!" I yelled at her, but she didn't notice.

His head shot up, his eyes widened in surprise and he set down his last glass while I was taking place opposite to him.

"Uhm, hello." I said cautiously and raised a wing as a greeting. "I would like to thank you for, you know, for the whole finding and taking me here thing. Thank you."

He didn't answer, he was just looking at me with disbelieving eyes. They were as grey as his hide, showing joy and surprise, but there was something else... I knew this look. Father had it on his face sometimes...
Inspecting him face to face I found him not to look as old as I had imagined, he wasn't much older than me, maybe seven or eight years, the grey color was to blame for him seeming older.

"I'm sorry, I was rapt in my thoughts. You want anything to drink?"
I shook my head, although I would appreciate some water but... ordering something without be able to pay would be quite embarrassing.
"What's your name?"

"I'm Whirling Feather. And you are Angel, I assume?"

He sighed, lifted his glass again and took a sip. "Angel, Guardian Angel, they named me so. It's not my real name but... I don't find it inappropriate, so I keep it."

Okay, a surface unicorns with strange names with a mysterious reason for not letting me die.

"How are you? I see that Duct Tape has patched you up. For a time I thought even he couldn't do it. By the time I found you you looked quite awful. Cuts and contusions, snapped off wings and a hell of a bruise on your face, as if somepony kicked you right into it. You're lucky my caravan heard your shots and sent me to scout, elsewise you would still lying out there."

That was true indeed. Every set of enclave power armor was equipped with a tracking device, but nopony seemed to bother doing the same thing with the officers' uniforms.

"What are you doing down here anyway? What leads a pegasus mare from above the clouds down here into the dirt?" he asked. "You were wearing enclave uniform when I found you. You're a Dashite?"

Again? Again?!

"No, no, NO! Do I have to tell this to everypony down here? I'm no Dashite traitor! No, Equestria: I. Am. No. Dashite!" I shouted as loud as possible.
The world should know, nopony should ever ask that question anymore, not ever!
I had unwittingly climbed the table in front of me and the distance between my face and the buck's was only a few centimeters. He just looked at me and took another sip.

"So, no Dashite then, I'm fine with that. I was wondering why you are still having your cutie mark, most Dashites don't. So, what is it then?"

"We were searching somepony, another pegasus."

"We?"

Okay, Feather, tell him.

"I had a team, we all were following her. Her name was Sunshine, she was a friend of mine."

"A friend or a "friend"?" Shot Glass asked. Damn, she was sneaky or maybe I hadn't been paying enough attention. My cheeks reddened nonetheless. "Okay, okay, you don't have to tell me." she chuckled, replacing Angels drinks, and left again. "Please continue."

"We... she was wearing a transmitter so we could track her, but just as we had found her we got..." I gulped. "...attacked. I don't know by whom but they were able to shoot down our vertibuck. And after being shot down I passed out, kind of. The other were already engaged in a firefight when I regained consciousness, everywhere lay injured and... and even dead pegasi. Hurricane and I craweld out the wreckage and then Cloud's head... it just... burst..."

There were tears running down my cheeks again and Angel laid a hoof around my neck consolingly.

"You don't have to say more, I understand." he said and I calmed down a little.

"Hurricane... Hurricane sent me after Sunshine, he remained behind, stopping the attackers. He sent me... I was the leader! I should have..."
I halted, the grey buck was looking at me with this look again. He didn't ask anything, no "Who was Cloud?" or "What's a vertibuck?", he was just sitting there, listening to me. And I was most thankful for that.

"So, did you find her? Sunshine, I mean?"

"Yeah, kind of. I confronted her but we had a... disagreement, so she knocked me out. "
He didn't ask what kind of disagreement it had been, fortunately, because if he had I would have to told him that we were pursuing her to bring her back to the Enclave where she would be either killed or branded. Or both. But he just sat there.

"So, what are you up to next?" he asked after I had finished my story.

"I want to return to my friends. We will contact the Enclave, tell them the mission failed, screw Sunshine, somepony else should take care of her."

"And how are you planning to find them?"

"I hoped... I hoped you could tell me where you have found me in the first place. From there I can trace back my way, I think. So far as I recall, the distance hadn't been that long."

"You have to know it, you were the one flying. But I wanted to ask you something else: do you have a place to sleep for tonight?"

Good question, next to what I should eat.
"I don't know." I sighed. "I don't have any money or anything to trade at all, not even my uni..." Wait a minute! "Angel, did you took my uniform from me?" Okay, I hadn't imagined it to sound that accusingly

"Y... yes, I did." He blushed slightly, his grey hide covered it well, and for the first time he stammered. "But... but it is not like you are thinking it is."

Thank you, Angel, now I was thinking about something bad.

"Your uniform wasn't more than a bloodstained scrap of cloth when I found you. After we had arrived here I brought your clothing to the local merchant, for fixing it. She should be done by now, even if you might not recognize the uniform as yours anymore. Is that a problem? You know, for the identification?"

"I don't think so." Or hoped. "If I encounter any other enclave pegasi I can tell them my rank and ID, this should work."

"Good to know." Angel downed his pint. If this had been anything alcoholic it didn't affect him much as he stood up and walked straight to the door.
"Are you coming along?" hes asked. "There should be something eatable back at my camp at the brahmin pen, a place to sleep should be there as well. But you don't have to, only if you want."

As a filly I had been warned about to go along with elder stallions, promising me something, but this time had no real choice.
The sound in the main room had died away while I was talking to Angel and as Shot Glass opened the door again to look for us, I saw the landlord chasing off the brawlers wielding a shotgun, poorly conditioned but unhealthy nonetheless.
I wouldn't get such an offer here, I presumed, not for free.

"Okay, but don't try anything funny." I answered snappishly and walked through the door he was holding open with his magic. He might be a knight in shining armor for now, but limits had to be set.

"By the goddesses, I swear." he chuckled and closed the door behind us.

We walked through the night, our way illuminated by a small, blue glowing orb Angel had summoned and as we walked past the pen I asked what it was for. It was nothing I would die to know for, but it was definitely better than trotting in silence.

"Well, for the brahmin of course." the grey buck answered and pointed his hoof somewhere in the direction of the red rocks.
Was something hiding there?

"What is a brahmin anyway? Some kind of pony? A bird? A..." I searched my brain for the most exotic animal I could think of right now. "A lizard?"

"Did you just fell out the skies, kiddo?" A deep voice came out of the darkness and there I was, staggering and in the air – only a peagsus could manage that – scouting around for the voice's source. It sounded accusing.

"Don't be so hard on her," a second voice said from almost the same direction. But from where? "You see that? Wings. She's a pegasus, man! I haven't seen no pegasus in years." I looked deeper into the darkness, but there wasn't anypony or anything, except for the rocks.

"You have never seen a pegasus."

"I have!"

"No, you don't!!"

"Yes I did!!!"

"I would remember that!"

"Okay, okay, it was a picture..."

"Yes, from a playcolt magazine!"

"So what!!"

Whoever was doing it, they kept arguing until Angel's magic gently embraced my tail and nudged me to land again.

"Jeff! Fred! Is that your way to welcome a newcomer?" he said reproachfully. "Don't you want to introduce yourself?"
His light fell onto the empty pen and the, suddenly, something was moving in the darkness, making it look like the rocks had changed... wait a second, the rocks were moving for real!

The... thing that rose from the ground looked like a big, red, hairless... cow.
Well, actually it looked like two cows, two heads, but only on body...
By Luna, it was a big, red, hairless cow with two heads.
Two heads!

The two-headed cow-thing noticed my stunned expression and he... it... the two of them started laughing.

"Never seen a brahmin before, huh?"

Brahmin. Cow. Tow heads. Luna, I was glad the day would be over soon, I couldn't take any more of this surface stuff.

"What... who... what are you?" I asked, still stunned by the look.

"We are a brahmin, Fred and I." the more serious head said, while the other one was still chuckling. Or maybe it was still sore.

"But how..."

"Your question isn't exactly what I would call elegant. But to answer it: We simply are. Maybe it was radiation, maybe taint or evolution, I don't know, but we are who we are, just like you, pegasus."

An awkward silence followed as I was still staring at the brahmin, still unable to fully wrap my head around this fact.
If I wouldn't get anything to eat this night, I would have this to digest at least.

"So... and what... are you doing all day?" I said. Be nice to the the weird cow thing, maybe it eats ponies. "You aren't just standing there all the time, are you?"

"Oh no." the Jeff head answered. "While we're not traveling with them caraveners, carrying their stuff, because they're too weak, we are solving crimes and wasteland mysteries, chasing the most wanted criminals of these lands, the most despicable and abhorrent creatures that ever walked the face of Equestria."

"We are?" the other head sounded surprised. "Then why are you still standing there, Jeff? Start running. Save yourself."

And there they were, bickering again.

"Well, I'm afraid we have say good bye." Angel said into the argument, much to my relief. "I have to put this young mare to bed and you need your beauty sleep as well, don't you?"

"You're dead right, Angel." the heads answered in unison and then they... it plumped down on the ground, instantly starting to snore. It looked like a red rock again.

"Come now, you look hungry and in desperate need for sleep. You won't get either if you keep standing there and stare at the brahmin. "

He was dead right, I was starving.

I never would have guessed that I would feel so happy about a simple can of ready-to-use-vegetable-whatever-thing and a mattress along with a blanket.

Angel provided both without asking another question, although I was wondering why he carried around so much bedding, aside from his own he offered me another blanket and some kind of pillow. Not as comfortable as a cloud, but it would work. He also lit a small campfire to warm over the food between the two bedrolls.

As I lay there, my muzzle filled with delicious 200-years-old vegetables, I noticed something strange about the grey buck, something very strange even: on his flank, where his cutie mark was... should be... was a dark colored spot. It wasn't easy to tell where his coat ended and the spot began, but I simply knew it wasn't natural. From time to time the flickering fire was throwing light on his flank. I wasn't sure what exactly I saw, it could be a flying bird or a pegasus. I would need Celestias' sunlight to have a good look on his...

I suddenly became aware of Angel watching me as well. Oh goddesses, what was he thinking of me, staring at his hindquarters for I didn't know how long. Just... just focus your eyes on your can, don't say anything and everything will be fine, Feather. And don't blush!

While I was eating I struggled with myself about whether ask him about his flank or not. Awww, probably not. Maybe I was just an ordinary surface-unicorn cutie mark, looking strange in the dark, I bet stranger things were happening.

After I had finished my meal and had taken one of the pills Duct Tape had given to me, I looked up again, thanked Angel, who was gazing at the sky in abstraction, for the meal, he was acknowledging it with a nod and wished me a goodnight. After I had laid down on my bedroll and curled up under my blanket, I turned my gaze towards the cloudy sky as well, my first surface night sky: I wasn't used to it, the clouds covering the sky were dark and heavy, only the faint light of the moon was piercing them. It was my first night down here and I already missed the stars. It was depressing to see it, but the prospect to return to the other side of the clouds again raised my spirits.

So, this was it then, my very first night at the surface. Well, it could have been worse, I guess. I had a roosting-place, blanket and bolster, a well-filled stomach, potentially the friendship of a surface dweller and at least the tolerance of others.

I had slept deeply and felt well rested as Angel woke me by poking me with his hoof. By the sounds of ponies on their hooves around me it was already getting late.

"You slept well?" Angel asked und levitated a bowl of... cornflakes towards me. "Sugar Bombs." he said as I looked askance at my breakfast. Who in Celestia's name came up with the idea of producing bomb-shaped cereals? Apart from them being 200 years old they didn't even taste good as I nibbled one of the "bombs". Angel, who was wearing a short blue, flank-covering overcoat, saw the disapproving look on my face and the bowl floated towards him once again.

"Not everypony's taste." he said while raising one of the cereal flakes towards his muzzle. "But I don't have anything else right now, I'm very sorry." Another flake went down his throat. "Sugar bombs were one of the most famous and widespread cereals of the pre-war Equestria, you're finding them in all places. Or you used to be at least, somepony seems to acquire a taste for them."

"What time is it?" I yawned and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

"I don't know, but judging by the shops of the village it's late in the morning, maybe noon already. I didn't want to wake you earlier, my last attempt made you slamming your wings into my face, but you should really get up now, I would like to get your equipment before the waiting queue gets to long."

I nodded, rose and was about to pack my bags when I was realizing that I had neither bags nor something to pack. The only thing I owned was the small bottle of painkillers and I gave them to Angel for safe keeping, simply because he had a pair of saddle bags.

While we were walking to the shop Angel had entrusted with the repair or rather restoral of my uniform I decided to ask him about his strange cutie mark which, in day light, showed a pegasus, wings outstreched, and that wasn't eve the strangest thing. Also a long horn was emerging from the pegsus' head.
His cutie mark was portraying one of the princesses.

"Angel, my I ask you a question?" I asked and he nodded. "I've seen your ctuie mark. What has happened? It looks so..."

"Strange?" he finished my question and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Yes, that's one way to put it. I mean, it shows one of the... I think they're called alicorns, aren't they? I don't know how cutie marks are supposed to be down here, but back home, cutie marks show all kinds of clouds, sunrises, sometimes a star, never a other pony and never one of the princesses. I've never seen something like this, not even in books."

I could see how the unicorn buck was balancing the reasons to answer or not, then he shook his head. "It's something... private. I would appreciate not to talk about it now, maybe later."

Sure, I didn't want to force him.

We continued our way and soon we arrived at low building, a small crowd of chattering ponies standing in front of it. Unlike the clinic or the hotel, the shop we had been heading to was built directly on the ground, not bridges or catwalks were connecting it to other buildings above.
The chatter passed into whispering as Angel and I reached the front door and stepped inside.

"They're talking about you." Angel whispered while we were enqueued.
Hey, they had those too at the surface.

"About me?"

"Well, they are talking about the odd pegasus the caravan guard dragged along lately."

"Odd pegasus? I'm... I'm not odd." I said in displeasure. "I'm pretty ordinary."

"You've got wings, that's good enough for them."

"A pegasus can't be such a rare sight down here. I mean, there have to be some surface pegasi... or not?"

"Maybe there are, maybe there aren't." Angel answered, his voice still lowered. The looks of the ponies around left me unsure about if they were trying to listen or if they tried the opposite. "There are stories about pegasi called "Dashites", you may have heard of them, but hardly anypony has actually seen them. Your Enclave itself hasn't exactly a good reputation amongst the surface dwellers. The ponies only know that you, up there on your fluffy clouds, don't struggle for survival day in day out, that you don't come down to us and that you sealed off the sky. That's mostly enough for the ponies down here to dislike your kind."

Just as I wanted to give him a lecture about the Griffin Wars, food rationing and the necessity of the cloud cover he continued.

"I do not say I share their view or agree with them. There has been a solid reason for the Enclave to seal up the sky after the Great War for sure. Many times I ask myself how the sun, the moon or the stars actually look, but I don't miss anything I've never seen, but I'm speaking exclusively for myself, nopony else. I just want you to understand if you talk to somepony and he or she seems to dislike you for no apparent reason. Just keep it in mind, okay?"

There were only a few more ponies in line before us and strangely nopony else had entered the store after us. As the stallion in front of us had received his goods and left we were alone, the shopkeeper apparently had left the room too, maybe he or she had gone into the backroom.
Neither of us talked while we were standing before the counter and just as the silence was about to grow really unpleasant a yellow mare entered. A yellow unicorn mare, carrying a small package with her magic.
It was...

"Hello, Suture." Angel said befriendingly and the mare nodded in return.

"The same to you, Angel. And to you, Whirling Feather. You're here for your order, aren't you? That - I'm grudgingly calling it that – piece of clothing you asked my to... mend."

"Is it finished?" the grey buck next to me asked and Suture let out a guffaw.

"You can say that, it's... wearable. She could put it on, but she couldn't do it too, that's what I would advise. Given the raw material you gave to me there really wasn't much I could do."
She then turned around and was looking at me, still stunned about the coincidence.

The local doctor's assistant was also the local tailor. And the assistant assisted a doctor named Duct Tape. Which one of them was treating wounds that needed to be stitched up? None of the answers actually comforted me.

"Young mare, I am talking to you." the assistant/tailor said with an accusing voice, as if she had already tried several times to get through to me.

"Excuse me. Say again?"

"I just said: I hope you didn't cling to your uniform too tight, because everything I was able to rescue was the form. Look at it." she said and the package she had lain on the counter opened.

If I hadn't know the thing I was wearing now had once been my enclave officer's uniform I wouldn't have recognized it as that:
Instead of the black blazer that was used to be buttoned diagonally around my chest I was wearing a kind of vest, mainly composed of a solid brown fabric, partially covered by black parts of my former uniform. Even the buttons were displaced, they were centrally arranged on my chest without any apparent reason, the buttonholes were missing. My upper neck would be covered by a grey collar and I would wear a black shirt underneath to cover my chest.

Additionally Suture had equipped the garment with two small pockets that were easy accessible for both my mouth and my wings. Wings might not be the most precise grabbing tools, not match for a unicorn's horn, but a pegasus like me was able to grab smaller things with the stronger primal feathers.

I didn't understand what Suture had meant with "wearable". The garment wasn't looking too patched up, it would fulfill its task and looked quite fashionable for it being mainly recycled.
Apparently Suture was knowing her craft.

"I'm charging 120 caps for the garment, minus 50 because there's something left of the high quality materials and minus another 20 for you've already payed her hospitalization. Uh, and you ordered that other pair of saddle bags, right? Another 40, please." Suture continued once I had put on my cloths. "Anything else I can offer to you?"

"Yes, indeed." Angel answered quickly, attached the saddle bags to my back and pulled a list out of one of his own. "I need ammunition for my guns, 10mm, eight magazines in total. We will also need some of the Pea&Beans if you still have some of them." We? "You've got no weapon, have you?" he said suddenly and turned to me, I was shaking my head. "Well then, a 9mm pistol, mouthgrip and fitting ammo, 50 bullets, that should do..."

We finally left the store after Angel had listed several more items, bagged them up in our saddle bags and paid Suture an awful lot of bottle caps – bottle caps, of course they paid in bottle caps, because why not? - and trotted back to our campsite, our bags bulging. After we had arrived at the fireplace we renegotiated the load, the grey buck generously burdened himself with the major part, then he pulled out a map, laid it onto the former campfire, his magic grabbed a little stick and he set it down on his map, marking a random location.

"This is where we're headed." he explained. "I've found you there, so if your friends are still at the surface then most likely there." Quite logical, remaining at our last known position after being shot down was the reasonable thing to do.

"We?" I asked carefully.

"I'm coming with you, of course. The wasteland is a dangerous place, you'll need somepony to cover you. And after all, I am the one who knows the way back. I don't want to question your pathfinding abilities, but even with a map it's very unlikely you would reach your goal. That's why I'm going to accompany you."

Okay, Feather, shut up, you don't want to shoo away the one who rescued you once and offered to guard you further.

"You can handle that kind of firearm?" Angel looked at his saddle bag, where my new gun had been stored away and I nodded. I was used to use a battle saddle, but we were also trained to use mouthgrip weapons, you could never know... "That's good for our journey won't be an easy one. You and your friends went down on raider territory and not just any raider's, no, Bloodhoof Raider territory."

I looked at him in confusion. Were those Bloodhoof... things something I had to know? "What's a raider?"

He looked back, equally confused, then he shook his head and his look darkened. "I nearly forgot, you're new to all this. What's a raider... how shall I put it... raiders are the pony-shaped wasteland. They've already abandoned every principle, everything that distinguishes us from the wasteland's beasts, except for the weapons, they still use those. They're like animals, no, they are animals. They're driven by their instincts. Robbery, murder, torture, rape, that's what delights them. Luckily they seem to prefer being in certain places, a head quarter if you like, and they only come out from time to time to... hunt."
The sad look returned to his face as he continued. "You and your friends simply had bad luck to encounter such a hunt."

Bad luck then? I half hoped that Sunshine hadn't met those ponies too, the other half shouted "screw her!".

"Are those raiders also slave traders? I visited a small town for maybe half a day not long ago, we've ended one of their slave hunts, dozen ponies chasing one mare."

"No, they're no slavers, slavers are different. As much as I detest slavers, they do their work to survive. It may sound cruel, but a part of me, a very small part, understands. If raiders on the other hoof catch somepony and don't kill him or her instantly, than that's no mercy. They're only taking prisoners to continue the torture and the killing." He made another pause and looked to the sky before he continued. "Fortunately most of the time we'll only brush their territory. But if we encounter one of them shoot him, just shoot him. You will not be able to talk to them and death is an undeserved mercy for each of them."

That was... straight. "And how am I going to make out if somepony is actually a raider or like you, you know, one of the good guys. Their not wearing name badges reading "raider", are they?"

Angel didn't answer, but his muzzle formed a faint smile.

"Are they?"

"No, no they do not wear badges. It's just... there are no good guys out there in the wasteland, you will learn about that once you're down here for a longer time. There are ponies who will take your caps, ponies who will take your caps after killing you and there are ponies who just want to kill you and these ponies are the raiders. You will recognize them once you see them, sure as death."

"And how far away is this raider territory?" I wasn't frightened, just a little uneasy... oh, who was I kidding, I was frightened by his description of murder and torture, but what kind of pony wouldn't be?

"Three day's march, maybe less."

"Three days?! You... your caravan... you were carrying me for three days?"

"What should I say, we had a not fully stretched brahmin with us, Jeff and Fred didn't even notice you lying on their back. We would be able to cover the distance in two days, but that would mean constant gallop and Suture and Duct Tape made me swear by Celestia I wouldn't let you run or fly too fast. And since I love my life I recommend to split the journey into three or four parts." The stick tapped several marked placed on the map. "There're some ruins alongside our way, we'll stay there for the nights, there may also be some not already scavenged supplies. I bought some, but it would do any harm to get more for there are no other settlements on our way. It will be tough, but we will make it, don't worry."

After his monologue had ended he rolled up his map again and stored it it away. "You're ready?"

I nodded. The sooner I would be able to leave this wasteland the better.

Boring.

That wasteland really lived up to its name. There wasn't anything apart from some dead bushes and whole lot of dirt and stones. Well, above the clouds there wasn't much as well, some cities here and there, but I hadn't seen any of those down here yet.

Angel and I were trotting alongside silently for hours now, no word had been spoken since we had left the village of Springmare. My companion seemed to be buried in thought again and I was gazing at the surrounding landscape in hope of seeing something interesting. And nothing interesting happened. For hours.

It was late afternoon as we decided to take a break at a small hillside, consuming a part of our provisions.

"It's weird." Angel said as he gazed into the distance once more. "I didn't expect our route to be so quite and peaceful, it's... boring."

"Boring?" I asked, not actually listening, only repeating the last word of his sentence out of boredom. Oh Celestia, even warming up at the academy had been more exciting than this.

"I've been expecting at least a bloatsprite or a small RADscorpion to cross our path."

"And what exactly is a bloatsprite or a whatsitsname scorpion?"
Surely nothing that had existed before the war, I would have heard about them otherwise.

"Well, RADscorpions are... scorpions, I guess."

My look suggested "that's not helping" and he tried again.

"Ah,... huh... they're just scorpions."

"I am enclave, above the cloud cover there isn't much except for pegasi and even more clouds, try to be a little bit more descriptive. Are they ponies? Are they small? Furry?"

"Okay, now you're describing the opposite of a RADscorpion, that's good." he chuckled but then his eyes widened.

Something small and spiky hit the back of my head and was stuck in my mane. I soared into the air, swirled around and drew the pistol I had haltered in a holster attached on my right foreleg. But there was nothing behind me, nothing but dead grass and a blasted tree. Then I saw something small coming at me again, it brush my cheek and suddenly I saw something moving in the grass. Or more precisely: above the grass:
The creature was hold in midair by way too many transparent wings and looked at me with its two blueish eyes that were sticking out of its deformed and bloated body. It wasn't bigger than a newborn foal's head but with its bottom it was shooting the small projectiles at me.

Before I could examine the strange any further it exploded in a cloud of green and grey goo. As I looked back over my shoulder I saw Angel, his own pistol raised by his magic, its barrel still smoking.

"That one was a bloadsprite." he said and his gun returned to its holster. "They're not dangerous, only if there're like ten of them or one of their projectiles finds its way into one of your eyes, then you should start being worried." He moved slowly towards the grey puddle of bloadsprite and beckoned me over as well. I hesitated for a moment. Blown up headshaped bodies weren't exactly the thing I wanted to see ever again after the incident with Cloud Striker...

After I had forced myself to join the grey buck and trotted over to the what remained of the insectile creature I saw exactly what I had expected: a small heap of sludge, to cap it all one of its wings was still twitching. And Angel poked it with a small stick.

"Is that really necessary?" I asked in disgust and pointed my wing at his stick.

"They may look disgusting but some parts are of use, you can even eat some of them." I turned up my muzzle in disapproval. Disgusting. "You can't be fussy about food down here. But don't worry, blaodsprites aren't the ugliest things down here..."

Oh, thank you, Angel!

" If I think about it, I don't want to know what a RADscorpion is. Can we just move along again? Please?"

We left the puddle behind and returned to our path. "It's going to be dark soon," my companion said as he fetched his map again, letting it float in front of our faces as we walked. "so we should seek sleeping-place. We're almost here." he continued, tapping on the paper, one of the marked location. "One of our stopovers. The ruins of a small town, I forgot the the name but the local buildings should give us shelter against the night's cold."

"How far?"

"We should reach it before nightfall at this rate, enough time to look for stuff worth scavenging and a protected room to sleep."

"Sounds good to me."

When Angel said ruins he meant ruins. Plain fields of dust, gravel and wooden rubble surrounded the remnants a few larger buildings, each four of five stories high and built of grey concrete.

"What happened?" I asked and pointed at the ruins.

"The Great War, maybe?" my companion answered bluntly. "It looks the same in almost every city of Equestria."

Thanks, smarty-pants. "I mean the buildings."

"As I do."

"I mean, one... two... " I was counting the bigger ruins on my wings pinions. "There're like four building. That was no town, left alone a city, maybe an office block. But nonetheless there was place-name sign, we couldn't read it, but it was definitely such a sign."

"You've never seen destruction by balefire, have you?" Angel asked and I shook my head.
By old pony tales I knew you could gather the remains of an balefire in a shopping bag, but I've never thought about it very much.
"Once there were many buildings, houses and stores and offices alike, dozens as I was told. And the balefire strike sweeped them away."

"How!?" I asked staggered. Before my mind's eye a crimson red beam struck an enclave city, an explosion followed and debris and scorched clouds were everywhere.
By Celestia, why was I imagining anything struck by missiles!

"As I take it, balefire is, as its name implies, fire. Radioactive and dark magical fire but fire nonetheless and it burns fast, long and very hot. And just that happened." His hoof gathered a small pile of dust. "Beat your wings, please."

My eyes wandered from his face to the dust pile and back, than I nodded and did as I was told. The dust was blown away, just as anticipated. "And what was that about?"

"That's what happened to the town around. The dark fire incinerated the wooden things and turned them to the dust we're standing on, only the most resilient ones remained, but they were damaged too, as you can see."

It was impressive. Just like the city I had seen on my first day down here. The destruction that had been unleashed here and in so many other places was shocking and terrifying, but also impressive. And so were the buildings of ponies that had resisted fire, heat and time itself, even if they had been scorched by them. They were still intact.

"Once your done marvelling we should go any try lodging ourselves inside one of those. I don't want to search for a good place when it's dark and the ceiling could come down any moment." Angel said and walked towards one of the doors, I followed him. "Come on, maybe there's still useful stuff inside one of those."

"And when you say "stuff" you mean....?"

"Just that. Stuff. Something useful we can carry with us. Some of the pre war buildings are veritable goldmines, in the figurative sense of course. You wouldn't believe what things the old ponies carried to work."

We opened the doors and stepped inside.

It was... dark in here.

The only things I could see were some silhouettes of scattered objects on the ground, only alit by the light coming from the outside. Night was falling indeed. I merely stepped into the darkness, looking for a mysterious source of light, and found myself slipping on a cylinder-shaped object, managing to keep staying upright only by excessive wing beating.

"Luna, didn't those ponies install any windows?" I grumbled as Angel's horn started to illuminate the furnishing. As the light fell onto the ground the trip hazard turned out to be an empty soda bottle somepony had carelessly dropped over two hundred years ago. But maybe it wasn't careless after all, considering the large bulk of litter and empty bottles that lay around everywhere, fallen from the desks and reception counters that were lining the room. "Now what?"

"Now we're going sift through every desk, filing cabinet, wastebin and whatever's standing around here." he said while he was walking towards the reception counter. "Come on, what are you waiting for?"

"Wastebins? Are you serious?"

"You remember me talking about the pre war ponies bringing all kinds of stuff to work?" I nodded. "Well, they've thrown those things away too, so yes, we will search the wastebins."
As if he was going to proof his statement he levitated one of the trash bins towards himself and a small box floated out of its maw. "Hah, Cake!" proclaimed triumphantly and floated the, apparently unopened, box to me.

"That's disgusting." I said sniffily. Two hundred years old food, fair enough, but two hundred years old food fresh from the rubbish was an entirely different matter.

"Have a go at it, please." he said, thrusted another waste bin towards me and applied himself to his own again.

I sat onto the ground, my forelegs crossed in front of chest. "No."

Angel's turned his head around in disbelieve "No? Come on, don't be so prudish."

"You can talk." I replied and pointed a hoof at his horn. "Your the buck with the horn and I..." I flapped my wings, "...am the one with wings. And I will not use the limbs I might use to eat later on to ransack rubbish. I will search the desks, okay?"

My companion nodded unimpressed while I was trotting towards the office desks and floated a whole series of things past his eyes. "So what have we got there?"

Two more soda bottles: "Garbage"
A clipboard: "trash"
A collection of intensely chewed pencils: "May come to use one day, but still: garbage"
Something that looked like an old and burned book: "rubbish"
Another smaller box of...
"Cigarettes, bingo!"

Cigarettes?

"You're smoking?"

Angels turned his head again towards me while I was rummaging one of the desk's drawers. "What makes you think..."

"You're very happy."

His look turned from the box to me and back. And again. And again...

"Oh, they're not for me."

"For whom then?"

"For the pony paying for them. An article of commerce, plain and simple. I don't know why, but many merchants bade a high price for those. Two or three cartons can earn us... me dinner once I'm back in the civilisation again."
And with that he dumped his head in the garbage bin again.

"You found anything?" he asked once we had finally completed looting the room, thereby wreaking havoc inside.

"I don't know what's really useful down here." I answered and pointed a hoof towards the pile of items I hadn't classified as "absolutely useless and/or harmful to me or other ponies around".

"Any bottle caps or are they inside this heap too?"

"Angel, I might be an enclave pegasus but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. I've filled alle the caps I could find in here." I shoved a small bag of caps towards him. "There're also some singed bits, I think it's pre-war money. Is it still worth anything down here?"

The grey buck levitated a few coins out of the back, held them before his testing eyes and stuffed the caps into one of his saddle bags.
"I think so. You know coins like those were of gold once?"

"I know. And in the war they reduced the amount of gold the bits were made of more and more, to gain more money for the war effort of course. Hell of an inflation would have come soon if the war hadn't ended the way it did. The latest coins stored by enclave museums were of less than five percent gold, 2.7 percent if I'm not mistaken. They thought about replacing Equestria's coinage with paper money several times, would have made good economic sense, but I'm not sure if they really did it. But even if, the banknotes would have turned to dust by now for sure, the war..."

Before I could continue my lecture about the two hundred years old economics a rumbling noise from above silenced me. Angel dropped everything he was holding with his magic and drew one of his guns and signaled me to do the same. After I felt the discomforting feeling of a trigger at my tongue we slowly moved towards the nearest stairway. My companion was peeking around every singel corner once we had entered the staircase, probably to spot potential aggressors.

We finally arrived at the first floor and were standing in a corridor, maybe ten or fifteen meters long and angling off at one end, the other was buried beneath the collapsed ceelings and floors of the other stories. Angel immediately backed up against the wall and sneaked towards the corner, his weapon raised.

"Maybe there're travelers, just like us." I whispered after I had holstered my weapon once more. "Shouldn't we try... contacting them somehow? I'm sure, if we are nice we..."

He rose his hoof, signaling me to shut up, and then his magic grabbed a piece of the rendering and threw it around the corner and into the attaching corridor. Nothing happened, except for the crumbling noise of the rendering hitting the floor. After that he looked around the corner himself, then he turned around and laid his hooves onto my shoulders, looking deeply into my eyes.

"Listen: if you hear pony-indicating noises inside an abandoned building, be it near raider territory or somewhere else in the wasteland, you shoot first and ask questions later. Believe me if I'm saying that nopony out here's going to help or become friends with us. And they might harm us if we didn't preempt them. It's them or us."

I looked at the grey unicorn in shock. That wasn't the Angel I had traveled with for the last day, left alone the one who had rescued me back then. This Angel seemed cold and ruthless as he sneaked around the corner in shooting position. There wasn't anything to see except for more dust and crumbling walls, but my companion trotted over to the next corner, again levitation his pistol and a stonelike piece of the walls.

"Maybe there isn't anypony here at all, a piece of the ceiling could have come down and that's what we've heard. Maybe we should just to the lower levels again and search for a nice and warm roosting place, so we..."

Suddenly my companion swirled around, pushing me back and pressing me against the wall with one of his forelegs. His eyes were flashing in anger and determination. "What's so hard to get at: them or us?" My pistol fell out of my muzzle and landed clangingly on the floor, fortunately not snapping a shot.

"I wanted to say... maybe we can treat them peacefully..."

"Peacefully? Peacefully?! There's nothing peaceful down here. It's kill or be killed and I know what I'm talking about, Miss I'm-at-the-surface-for-two-days-already. What good was your peaceful behavior since you've come down here, huh?!"

For a while he was just looking at me angrily, then I coughed: "Angel, please... I can't breathe..." He whipped his foreleg away from my throat, threw the chunk into the next corridor and turned around again to continue our argument when something obviously unexpected happened: several shots were punching holes into the wall to our right, causing even more of it to crumble, and were followed by barely hearable shouts. Angel raised his gun again and trotted over to the corner.

"Come now, let's get this over with." he said in determination.

"Please, Angel..." I rasped and continued laying on the floor, making no move to take up my gun again. "Just one try."

"But they'll shoot you and I won't be able to save you this time!"

"I'm sure this can be dealt with by peaceful means. Just one try." I looked up to him in the most heartbreaking way I was capable of.
For a while he was just staring back, his anger melting down and sorrow filling his eyes, probably because he felt like he had hurt me, then he lowered his pistol.

"Celestia and Luna, damn me! One try and only one. And if they make any kind of attempt to harm you, I will kill them, okay."

I nodded. A small chance was better then none. Okay, Feather, recapitulate what professor Warhorse told you about weaponless conflict resolution on the battlefield. Three years ago...

First: Whispering while communicating with allies, you don't want the enemy to know your force levels.
Second: Figure out the enemy's own force level.

"Angel, can you do anything unicornic to say me how many ponies we're dealing with?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. Magical reconnaissance isn't my métier."

"Any other ideas?"

"Well, from what I know about the distribution of enemy wastelanders in gunfights I think they're standing in the corridor, most certainly covered by something, and are currently pointing their weapons in chest high of a pony shaped like me. But you're a pegasus, maybe we can trick them.
Without any killing." He added the last at my questioning glare. "You could try flying up to the ceiling and look at them from there, they won't expect it, I can say that for sure. But still, don't be out of cover for too long, even the most braindead raider will spot you eventually."

I sat back on my haunches and thought over Angel's suggestion again: Flying up to the ceiling, a peek around the corner to see how many diplomatic targets I was dealing with and ideally not getting shot in the process. No problem at all.

Flapping my wings as silently as possible I moved upwards and became stable centimeters under the ceiling, then I was struck by the thought of how I would manage to only peek on my targets. Unlike griffins pegasi were very precise flyers but even we couldn't move that precise while airborne. And since I was no pony with super-duper spider powers there was no climbing the walls either.
Well, then I had to be precise...

I fluttered towards the wall, so close it and my forehead nearly met, and took one final breath then I turned my head to the left and over my shoulder, getting a view on the corridor: two ponies, both of the pointing their weapons on the corner below, just as Angel had predicted it. A full grown brown earth pony stallion, wielding an old revolver, and an unicorn foal, a colt if I wasn't mistaken, levitating a small, homemade shotgun. Both of them were dressed in fawn clothing, baring many patches, and didn't quite fit the image of a raider as I imagined it from Angel's poor description. And those two had shot at me? A colt?

"Watch out, kid! Up there!" the old one yelled and pulled his gun up, presumably just as the foal did, but I couldn't see any of it, for my head had long returned behind the edge at the time the two shots hit the wall.
I landed next to Angel again and told him that we were up against two other ponies.

"Just two of them? Great! If we have to fight them, we..."

"That's a colt." I snarled. "You would actually shoot an innocent foal?" He shut up and stammered something scarcely audible, something had hurt his feelings. Good. "We won't shoot if I can prevent it somehow, until there's no other way left to go." I said gravely, staring at him, hanging his head and not giving any word of objection, as he stept away from the corner so I could talk to our discussion partners.

"Hello?" I called out into the corridor. "You're still there?"

Yes, apparently they still were, if I interpreted the next shot correctly.

"There's no need for violence, no need to shoot at me, I am no threat to you!"

Another shot.

"Please, answer me!"

"Shut up, scum! You won't screw us, we know who – or better – what you are!" The stallion answered, reinforcing his argument with a third shot.

"Dad!" another voice yelled, sounding much younger than the previous one. "You didn't tell me monsters could talk, you said they only could hiss or roar."
Maybe we could talk via the foal...

"Shush, son! It's a trick. That thing won't lure us into a trap just by making speaking-noises."

Or maybe not.

I turned my head to Angel, seeking help of any kind, but all I got was his "Told you so" look.

"I assure you we don't mean to harm you. To neither of you."

"Oh, it's "we" now? How many of you are there? Five? Ten? Don't worry, I've got enough bullets for all of you!"

Gosh, he was going in very emotional, but Angel had been just like that a few moments before. "Is there anything I can do so that you trust us... me." Hopefully the answer would not be: "Blow your brain out!"

"No!" the stallion shouted and cocked his revolver.

"There has to be a way we could manage this situation without anypony getting shot." I said almost in desperation. Didn't the ponies down here trust each other?
Then I came up with an idea. Not a good one, but it would definitely lower the suspicion, I hoped.

"How about I through my gun over to you and come out of cover, so we can talk face-to-face? I will be alone and unarmed, no need for shooting."

He didn't reply anything. No "No" meant "Yes", didn't it?

"And whatever happens, please, don't shoot them." I said to my grey companion, unloaded my gun and shoved both the pistol and its magazine around the corner with a forceful swing of my wings, then I counted up to ten silently and stepped out of cover, my eyes closed.

Please don't shoot me. Please don't shoot me. Please don't shoot me. Please don't shoot me.

A shot rang through the corridor and I flung myself on the ground, yelling: "Please don't shoot me!" Then there was the noise of an revolver's hammer clicking on an empty chamber, but much to my relief no noise coming from the shotgun. I reopened my eyes cautiously and looked at the two ponies in front of me, both of them aiming their weapons at my face, but I knew stallion had no ammo left in his gun and the colt wouldn't fire. At least I hoped so. From the corner of my eyes I could see Angel cowering at the edge of our former cover, both his pistols raised, but he was lowering them since I hadn't been shot after all.

"Is that a monster, dad?" the small one asked and poked me with his gun barrel. "It's got wings."

"What does the Enclave want here?" the father growled, pulling back his son from me, and stared down at me. His weapon might be empty, but I would appreciate not to feel his hooves on me.

"I'm not here with the Enclave." I began but he burst out in laughter.

"No Enclave, right! Clean clothing, clean mane and hide, wings. You're no native." Clean? My mane was anything but clean after a day traveling through the wasteland. "And you're no Dashite either, you still got your cutie mark, so what else you're then? A time traveler?"

"I'm... I'm an enclave pegasus, that's right, but as I said I'm not here with the Enclave. I'm here on my own and... AH!"
Before I could finish my sentence a sudden pulling sensation on my right wing made me cry out and blush, then I turned my head to the right.
While explaining to the elder stallion why I would like not being stomped to paste by him I had lost track of the small unicorn colt. And there he was, stretching and pulling on my wing and its individual feathers with both magic and hooves.

"Is that a pegasus?" the colt asked his father as he plucked one of my small feathers. "Can I keep it?"

He could have asked me myself as well, but since it seemed to calm down the elder stallion I was okay with being the object of interest. The anger faded from his face, turning into concern. "Stay away from her, son. It might be a trap!"

"But it doesn't do anything. It's just lying still and quiet." The small one turned his head away from his father's and looked into my eyes. "My name's Trifle, and yours is..."

"Whirling Feather." I whispered. Don't destroy his picture of you.

"Are you an evil pegasus?"

I shook my head. As little as I liked being seen as a pet, at least could talk to the two this way. "I don't want to do you any harm, I swear. And my companion does not as well. Angel," I called out over my shoulder, "please come out, they don't want to shoot us." The grey buck did as he was told, coming around the corner, both of his pistols holstered, and kneeled down next to me.

"What do you want?" the stallion asked, relatively kindly and more quiet than before.

"We want to talk."

Well, that had worked out better then I had thought: After the elder stallion had come to the conclusion that neither of us was about to hurt him or his son, whereby the colt himself had been more than slightly involved in the process, we went down to the ground-floor again, Angel packed our saddle bags with everything we had classified as useful or valuable, and together we made ourselves comfortable within the upper floors of the office building. Separated rooms of course, both stallions of our groups didn't trust each other that much to share bedrooms.

The father introduced himself unwillingly as Steed and he made no secret of how he his son was the only reason he hadn't left us straight away.
I managed to arrange a meeting in the building's central lobby to empower the fragile mutual trust. Both the stallions had refused to come at first, but the begging looks of the colt and me convinced them in the end.

The meeting itself amounted to nothing more than Trifle and me sitting on the ground, he told me many stories about several locations in the wasteland I didn't know and couldn't imagine, and in return I had to tell him everything about my life in the Enclave, but only the interesting parts, so I cut the whole military-stuff. And of course he had to play with my wings again...

Angel and Steed just stood at the opposing ends of the room and obviously tried to nail each other down with distrustful stares. If the colt addressed a question to my silent companion he answered in such a cryptical way I had to invent something to keep the foal interested. And since Trifle was describing his own life on an epic scale it wasn't necessary for me to ask his father, but even if I would have to I wouldn't, Steed's death stare exceeded even the worst my father had to offer.

After it had ended I summarized the talk as: not ideal, for two of the members of the group had avoided talking to each other, but relatively good, since neither of the older males would kill somepony, even if it only was for their companions.

Angel and I were sitting on our bedrolls and watched a can of beans simmering on a small camp fire we had ignited with two hundred years old matches. Old bills, documents and clipboards didn't burn well, but it met our requirements and a hole in the ceiling above prevented the smoke from being dangerous to us.

"I'm sorry." said the grey buck. I heaved my head up from my hooves to look into his face, but he was still staring into the fire. "I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. You were right about those ponies, you could talk to them, it would've been a mistake to simply kill them."

"Forgiven and forgotten, Angel, no harm done. But why... did you act how you acted? I mean, you couldn't have known those two, you haven't even seen them before I initiated the dialogue."

Angel gave a bitter laugh and looked up from the fire. "As I said earlier: It's kill or be killed in the wasteland, especially when you're near raider territory. Nopony want to risk their lives or the lives of their friends or foals by not taking the advantage of ambushing a eventual opponent. That's why you shoot first and ask questions later when you hear strange noises inside an abandoned building."

"Have you ever... killed a pony, just because they crossed your way in the wasteland?" Right after I had closed my mouth I didn't want to know his answer anymore.

He thought about my question for at me, then he shook his head. "I don't know. Scavanging ruins isn't my full-time job anymore. I'm a caravan guard for ten years now and most of the time they pay enough for me to live a good life. When you're in on it for two or three years it's basically just endless traveling, you know the ambush points and give them a wide berth. But to answer your initial question: I've hurt ponies back in the day I was a scavanger, some of them died later on, but if they weren't raiders I often managed to scare them away." I stared at him startled and he added. "That's life down here."

He probably had a point and I could understand his position, but I couldn't agree. Killing ponies was never right.

"While we're at asking questions about each other why didn't we continue? There barely was time yesterday, was it."

Yesterday...

Hard to believe I had been down here for merely two days. It felt like days, even a week, which was perhaps down to the fact that there had been so many new things slamming into my face. But if her offered to tell me more about him, I won't ignore an opportunity, he had rescued me for no apparent reason after all. "You start."

"Okay. How old are you?"

"Twenty-six. And you?"

"Thirty-four, maybe?"

Maybe?

"You don't know?" I asked with both shock and disbelieve. How could he don't know?

"I don't think anypony down here can tell for sure, what with? Tear-off calendars? Tallies? And in case you haven't noticed, the clocks down here are broken as well."

Really? I looked up to the wall clock that was hanging over the door: it had stopped working indeed. "Why are they broken."

"Hello? Great War? Balefire bombs? Time itself?" Angel chuckled. "The balefire blast and it's aftereffect have damaged most of the arcane devices, clocks being no difference. And even if one of them survived the Last Day, very big if, they've run out of power a long time ago. The batteries powering them are considered very valuable, so nopony bothers with looking at the clock if they can power something more useful with the spark cells. And since every tear-of calendar in Equestria has turned to dust by now I'm guessing my age."

I nodded. That things I had taken for granted in the Enclave were rarities down here gave me a shock.

"And the next question."

"What has happened to your cutie mark? Is it a birth... something hereditary? An accident?"

The smile on his face died away all of the sudden and a pondering look replaced his prior happiness. "Can we defer this to another day? To a day that is not today, tomorrow or the day after? It's something very personal. You can ask me about my eating habits or about the remedy I use to let my horn be so shiny, about anything but my cutie mark. Okay? "

I didn't say anything for a while, but then the question escaped my mouth: "You've got a remedy for your horn?"

His sad look faded a little and he chuckled again. Mission accomplished! "You're great fun. No, I don't have some kind of washing agent, all I use is a little sip of water, Mother Nature takes care of everything else." He was still chuckling while he was taking our meal of the fire, filled a bowl he levitated out of our bags and handed it over to me while keeping the can to himself.

"Is there... family of yours?" I asked over my filled muzzle.

"No, there's not." Angel answered hesitantly. "Not anymore. My parents died many years ago, I was barely a colt. I struggled along on my own. They were good people, if I look at it from the distance. And you? Parents, grandparents, siblings?"

"No siblings, no. Though sometimes I wonder what it would have been like. I've got my father, my mother died in the Griffin Wars when I was a filly, I didn't know her properly. And Father..." I sighed. "...Father's a good father, I guess, considering him being an enclave High General. I didn't see him often, he's busy for most of the time, so I spent most of my time at the academy."

"High General sounds quite impressive." Angel said, picking up beans now and then and shoved them into his muzzle. "I'm sorry for your mother, she was a good mare, I'm sure. And what's your job in the Enclave? Not anypony can be a High General after all, am I right?"

I smiled. That was exact the kind of relaxing conversation I appreciated. Our talk proceeded for quite a while, by the time we finished and decided to go to sleep the fire had already died and only the unicorn's light allowed me to still see my companion. Right before I could wish a good night he trotted over to the door and examined the lock, then his horn lit up and the lock clicked a few seconds later. I was about to ask what he had done as he turned around and lay on his bedroll again. "Just a small reinsurance. I've locked the door and twisted a peace of metal inside, no lockpicker will pick that lock, not tonight."

I nodded in acceptance. He didn't trust the ponies we had just met, it was somehow understandable, but as long as he didn't harm the others I didn't mind. After I had turned around and shut my eyes there was a short silence, then the grey buck cleared his throat.

"There's one last thing I would like to know, if you don't mind." he said and I turned around again. After all the question he had answered it was only fair I would answer some more. "Earlier, when that colt, Trifle, "investigated" your wing, you were acting pretty weird. Is anything wrong? Are you... hurt?"

Oh, that...

"It's... complicated." I said and blushed once again. Not that as well!

"Complicated how?"

By Celestia, he didn't know anything about that and I had to explain the facts of peagsus' life to him. At least he was now foal. "It's a... pegasus affair..." I answered, blood was rushing through my cheeks. Damn it, Feather, why didn't you just said: "It's too personal."? Why? The grey unicorn looked at me questioningly. And I had to choose between two evils: I could give the buck an repulsive answer like: "That's none of your business!" or I could give detailed information about pegasus arousal to him. What should I just do? What!?

"Hello? Are you still there?" Angel suddenly asked worriedly. I awoke out of my rumination and looked at him in shock. "You are staring at those filing cabinets for some minutes now. Are you alright?"

Minutes?

"No, no, it's nothing, I'm okay."

"If it's something too personal we'll leave it undecided, besides I wouldn't understand a "pegasus affair" anyway, would I? And that it is too personal I can see even in the dark."

Oh great, I was that obvious. At least my wings didn't betray me this time, maybe they still had a guilty conscience. They had put me in this difficult situation after all. "It's just... normally we don't touch another pegasus' wings, only if we're in a close to somepony else. Our wings are very sensitive and..."

Angel raised his hoof abruptly. "Stop, that's enough. It's... all I wanted to know." he said and added scarcely audible. "And I thought he bit her." He wished me a good night and without another word he turned around and started to snore.

"By Luna I think I've embarrassed myself quite well today." I whispered to myself. Celestia shall banish those wings to the moon, along with that whole stupid pegasus anatomy! If I would awake the next morning with a wingboner and had shed all my feathers due to the molt I would've finally collected the Full House of pegasus specific awkwardness. I grumbled and curled up under my blanket, falling asleep after a short time. Quite a achievement, considering this was my first night in the wasteland, surrounded by unknown perils and enemies, only protected by nothing than a solid wooden office door with a reinforced lock.

Thank you, brain. Now I was scared.

Level up: Level 5

Skill(s): Speech 25

New Perk added: Harmless
"It looks kinda cute... "
Your Speech skill increases by 10 if no weapon (firearm, energy or melee weapon) is equipped.