//------------------------------// // Careless Whisper // Story: Fallout Equestria Tales : Record of Beryl Wars // by TDR //------------------------------// Record of Beryl Wars By TDR Chapter 2 Careless Whisper “Ummm Lily what's going on?” I ask sheepishly as my world was nothing but darkness and stumbling steps forward as I tried not to trip over anything in our small home. “I can't see anything....” I hear her small chuckle behind me and she pushes her hoof against my shoulder urging me forward with a small giggle. “That's the point silly, and if I told you what was going on, it wouldn't be much of a surprise now would it Beryl?” she mutters lightly, amusement at my plight, one she had put me in, evident in her voice. After a few more steps forward I bumped into the back of a chair, my claws closing about it like a life line though I still nearly fell. I feel her hoof leave my shoulder and hear the clicking of hooves as she moves away from me. I smile despite myself turning my head trying to hear where she had gone. The ramshackle hut we stayed in was not much, but The Republic of Fred was willing to take us in after our last village asked us to leave. I wasn't sure of the exact reasons for our leaving or our acceptance, but as always I expected it had to do with me. Lily had not been doing well at all for the first few weeks here, she never did when we had to move, the exertion of it all made her sick and it took her a few weeks to recover. I heard her laugh lightly again and I grumbled a bit to myself wondering what she was doing. I heard some rustling and then there was the acid scent of sulfur that sent Lily coughing. I reached up to pull off my blindfold, intent on trying to help her though I felt her magic push my hands down as she fought to control her coughing. “It's okay Beryl, I'm alright, just sit there a moment.” she said though her coughing. I tensed up not liking any sort of surprises, let alone letting Lily do anything that would cause her to go into a coughing fit. I moved to sit down in the chair I had been holding sitting down with a small sigh.” Are you sure you are okay?” “Yes Beryl. Okay, you can take the blindfold off now.” she said. I could still smell burning and I quickly yanked off the blind fold, finding the room dark with the curtains drawn. In the middle of the table was a small circular object, it looked like a biscuit of some kind though there was a white goo on the top that looked half melted. In the middle of it was a single candle burning slowly, threatening to spill wax on the object below it. “What.... What is this?” I stammer looking down at the candle. “Happy birthday Beryl.” Lily giggles. “I don't have to tell you how special this day is do I? It;s been ten years since you hatched. That's important to every one, so I dipped into the savings caps a little and got a cake for you.” “But … we needed those caps to pay a doctor to help you....” I complained wincing at how hard it was for a sickly mare and a little dragon to save money. “You're only ten once Beryl, now go on and make a wish and blow out the candle. “ Lily smiles. I looked up to see her smile, not able to stop a grin from crossing my features as well. I shook my head a bit thinking of pulling a few of my loose scales out to sell and slipping some caps back into the savings. I leaned up over the table inhaling deeply and letting a breath of air out to blow out the candle plunging the room into darkness to the sound of Lily's cheers. ============================================================= I awoke to screaming, I thrashed crying out loudly, jerking up right and falling over myself as something held me down. As I flailed I could hear ripping and another scream. I jerked up right and fell back over my own tail with a crash hitting the ground and sending a lance of pain through my head. I whimpered clutching at my head as I curled up on the floor. The scream sounded again though I was caught in a haze of pain, I was much more awake and it sounded less like some one screaming as it was some pony shouting for some one. I sat up slowly reaching up to my head, my hand finding it wrapped in bandages. I winced as I sat up, I looked like I had been cleaned and bandaged, if a bit badly judging by how many bandages had been used. I also smelled like I had been dipped in rubbing alcohol. It was like some one had read about treating an injury in a book and got a little overzealous when it was their turn to try it out. The room I was in was odd. It didn't have the usual look of a wasteland hovel. It was clean and excessively neat even though it was clear some of the things that made up the room shouldn't have been here. There was a section that looked like a door and another part that seemed to be metal of some kind that made up a wall. What seemed to be an airplane wing made a ceiling along with a section of a cement pond. All of it had been mashed together and shaped into something new. There was a great deal more wood than any other material all placed to look like the room was built in a tree. I was at the foot of a well made bed in what looked like a over sized dog basket. I would have been insulted if I hadn't noticed I had ripped the basket apart along with the blanket in my struggles. Some one clearly knew what I might do to the bed when I woke and the basket was probably easier to replace. I heard the cry again and slowly, if shakily rose to my feet heading towards the source. I pushed open a door looking down a set of stairs that opened into something I had never seen before. Walls covered in shelves filled with books of every kind. Some of them looked like they were almost brand new, and others were little more than garbage. But there were so many, I didn't even think this many books existed in the entire world, let alone in one place. Lily had two books she loved and a magazine or two but...... I froze in place on the stairs closing my eyes and trying to push away the memory, trying to focus on what was going on now and where I was. “SPIIIIIIKE! WAKE UP ALREADY!” shouts the voice. Granted the screaming voice didn't tell me anything about where I was, just that I needed to hurry. I paused on the stairs looking out a small window at the landing. Outside the ruins of the place I had found before lay exactly as I had seen them in my brief glimpse. I wasn't that far from the statue I was looking at before unless there were two of them. Also it was raining. Not exactly a rare occurrence this time of year, though the water was mostly tainted and was unhealthy to be out in for very long. Given my injury and the bandage around my head who ever was here evidently didn't want me dead which made me wonder if it was that red mare from before. She had clearly been trying to kill me. I wasn't sure if I was releaved at some one wanting me alive or not. “Spike you're going to miss breakfast!” the voice calls again. It sounded like a mare. Pushing down my rising depression at the reminder of Lily I looked around for a weapon. There was very little in the room that could be used as such. Aside from some books and a mess of candles there wasn't anything readily available, not even a stick or fireplace poker. “Spike get your scaly butt in here already. Jeez I've got a busy day ahead and you're lollygagging.” I wasn't sure who Spike was, but I also didn't want whoever patched me up to get angry. Who ever this was evidently knew a dragon, either that or she had named me Spike for some reason. In either case she was starting to get annoyed and I didn't really want to upset some one who was at least trying to help. With a last glance to the room I pushed open a door along the same wall as the stair case stepping into the kitchen. The kitchen smelled of burnt eggs and charred metal. The walls and floor seemed to be of the same odd blend of magic worked materials. There were a number of cabinets, a like new set of appliances and a dinner table with seven chairs, one with a booster seat, arranged around it. One chair and the one with the booster seat had plates before them. There appeared to be some sort of egg and a glass of what I assumed might be multifruit juice already placed before the chair with the booster seat. The dishes looked clean, another oddity about this place. Despite that, it was not the strangest thing in the room. That title was given to the tall lavender colored mare fiddling with the stove. Her fur was a light shade of purple, her mane and tail were darker purple with a light blue streak and a dark red streak running through them. She had no cutie mark, but like the one that attacked me earlier she had both wings and a horn. I back peddled against the door as she looked over at me. The tall mare blinked as she stared seeming to freeze in place a second with a spark or two glittering from her horn as she watched me with unblinking lavender eyes that seemed some what out of focus, looking through me to something far away behind me. She suddenly snapped back into motion and resumed her cooking. “Ahh, there you are Spike. Eat up before breakfast gets cold.” The mare states, her horn glowing a little picking me up off the ground and dropping me into the booster seat with a thud. I froze in panic though nothing else seemed to be forthe coming in the magic department. I looked down at the booster seat pushing it out from under me to the floor. I was easily tall enough to sit at the table like normal, I hadn't needed a booster seat in years. I spared a glance down at the eggs, not entirely certain what sort of animal they even came from, and at this point I was far to afraid to ask. Still I had not eaten for a while and if this mare wanted to kill me she likely could do so with magic and wouldn't need to poison me. “My name's Beryl not Spike. Who.. what are you?” I manage to correct and ask shoveling the eggs into my mouth as I did so. They were horrid, burnt and greasy and quite likely to be Cockatrice or even rad roach eggs. I really didn't want to know. The mare freezes again, a moment or two longer than before, dropping the spatula she was making eggs with , her horn sparking a little as she scrunches her face up a bit before reverting to how she was a before. The odd thing was that the light blue section in her hair seemed to get bigger, spreading to other strands. “Alright eat fast Spike, I want to get started on the dissertation of Gygax the Spellmaster as soon as possible. We have a lot to cover today if that list I made yesterday is any indication......” The purple unicorn continued to ramble on about some sort of theory or another. Honestly Beryl had no clue what anything she was saying was but he wasn't sure it was wise to argue with a mad mare. Still Lilly had named him Beryl and he was going to make sure that this mare used his name and stopped calling him Spike. “I already said Miss... my names Beryl, not Spike.... like my scales color. “ I comment noting the sudden freezing and another few sparks from her horn. “Yes, purple scales right... with green.....” her voice cracked a little as if strained. “Are you colorblind?” I ask curiously”... Umm my scales are dark blue and Lily called my spines color teal....” “Purple scales....” The mare growls clutching her head with a wince the sparks of her horn growing brighter. I flinch, slipping from my chair and moving away from the table. Something was very wrong with this mare, maybe I could get out of here before she did something to me. I still wasn't sure why I was trying so hard to live when I really didn't want to. The light around the purple mares horn grew brighter, the blue and red in her mane growing more pronounced. “It's not right... none of this is right..... the spell fire, death, the experiment... Trixie... Spike, my friends.......... RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” The alicorn screams out, a wave of magic blasting from her horn ripping apart the table and the room itself, blowing the walls off the building and sending me crashing back across the library, tumbling into a bookcase. As tough as dragons are I had already been hurt and being flung into a book case by a blast of magic stung more than a little. I managed to push myself up onto my elbows, the smell of burning wood and steel meeting my nostrils. I watched as the kitchen and slowly a good portion of the rest of the building was turned into a whirling mass of shrapnel and white energy as the alicorn continued screaming. A loud crack behind me made me turn enough to look up, only for the book case that had popped free of the wall to meet my curious gaze head on. And for the second time I succumbed to the darkness with a head injury. ============================================= “He's waking up.” “…..” “No you can't kill him we need his help.” “…..” “Yes Trixie understands he screwed up but that cannot be helped we didn't have a chance to tell him anything before she took over.” “…..” “Oh stuff it little miss hit things first and then check to see if they were important later. Trixie doesn't want to hear your complaints now. If you hadn't smashed him with that stupid sign of yours Trixie might have managed to speak with him before she woke up. This time it was fully your fault. Trixie is trying to help and you are not making it easy.” I groan, slowly sitting up and shielding my eyes from the light as I take stock of my surroundings with one eye. I didn't seem any more battered than I was before. And I seemed to be in the same room as I was before, though on the bed this time instead of a basket. “No the kitchen is a total waste. We need to pull more from the buildings to replace it. Trixie doesn't know where, you're the scavenger here.” “................” “Just look in the student housing they were bound to have some toasters or something left.” Looking around I spotted the source of the voice. A tall light blue mare stood on the far side of the room looking out one of the windows into the wastes beyond. Her long white mane and tail had purple and red streaks running through them and a long curled horn sprouting from her forehead. Her mane fell down over her shoulders partially covering a pair of wings pressed firmly against her back. Like the purple mare this one had no cutie mark, she also appeared to be talking to herself. I remained still a moment half expecting something else to hit me, though the mare closed her mouth and turned to look over at me. “Hmm, how's your head? Trixie must admit she is not very skilled at bandaging, though she has had to make due lately quite often lately. Your name was Beryl was it?” the mare asks not approaching though she did look him over as she cocks an ear looking off to her right side as if some one was there. ”Fine Trixie will skip to the point.” “ Yes umm whats going on who and what are you?” “Trixie is Trixie. An alicorn, though that's not important right now. What is important is that my associate and Trixie need your assistance.” “What?” The mare rubs her hoof against her forehead her ears flattening to her head. “Shut up a moment.” “Ummm.” “Not you Beryl.... arrgh.... Alright you remember the purple alicorn and the red one. Both of those are sort of Trixie. Or maybe Trixie is sort of them.... The red one might be the real one.... “ “Huh?” “Yes Scarlet, Trixie is very much aware he has no idea what Trixie is talking about.” Trixie growls to herself. “ Look Beryl. You know when the purple one called you Spike. We need you to act like Spike or at least not break her perversion of reality or well.... you saw what happened.” “Umm, what why? And what's a Spike?” “The purple one is called Sparkle. She is more a fragment of a memory than anything else but she is very strong. Spike is Sparkle's familiar or companion or little brother Trixie is not really sure. The point is Sparkle is the most powerful of the three of us and she's stuck on a loop of the same three days of her life in the past. Every time she emerges she goes through the motions of these three days and if she completes them the time between her three days of control lengthens. If something disrupts it the time between these bouts shortens and the pair of us have less time to be free. This 'Spike' has never been an issue before, we always left a note saying he went out or something though by the end of the day she loses it as the reality breaks when he's not there. We managed a few complete three day runs with a radbunny painted purple, but when it died things went down hill quickly and she didn't accept another purple radbunny. After all the failures we went from months to ourselves to perhaps a few hours at most. We need you to play along with Sparkle or we might vanish entirely.” I slowly blink looking up at the blue alicorn. Understanding not a bit of that.” There's three of you?” “You are rather slow on the uptake.” “Head trauma.....” “Right okay Trixie gets that and understands. Look basically we just need you to pretend to be another dragon for a while when Sparkle is in charge. Yes three of us inhabit This body. It... it's complicated, but we don't have the time to explain as we need to restore this place fully in the few hours we have. Know that you will not be in any danger unless she starts doubting the reality that we are setting up, you will be fed and cared for. We are some what lucky that the three days she relives were only spent studying inside and not saving the world or whatever else she did.” “ Why all this why not just tell her what's going on, you seem to know and it seemed to me she thinks she's some where else?” I ask. “Again a long story and if you stick around you might hear it but we are down to two hours now at best and we have a kitchen to rebuild. Sparkle does not know about us and our attempt to contact her made her have a break down. We've been out here since The Destroyer killed the Goddess, our instability has been getting worse. Sparkle is very powerful and the last thing we want is some one killing her and us after she snaps and accidentally murders someone. Alicorns are still not well liked in most places.” I stare a little at them still not grasping heads or tails of the story, but in truth I didn't want to get involved at all. I didn't want to be cared for or tended I just wanted to curl up somewhere and die. “Look I'm sorry but I don't think I can do this....... I just want to be left alone......” I state climbing out of the bed shakily. Trixie flattens her ears wincing a little, the red streak in her white hair getting wider. “What? What could you have to say? Trixie is not telling him that, Trixie doubts that's the issue any way...... seriously? No Trixie is..... yes Trixie knows... Trixie is sorry …. Don't hurt him. Trixie says that because you already did, do not threaten him we will find another way...... Torture is a threat Scarlet...... please.... fine.... Trixie was going to give you control any way, you needn't remind Trixie of what she did to your body...” The blue alicorn sighs as her eyes change color from lavender to green, a grin that was far from pleasant crossing her muzzle. Her horn flashes briefly and the white mane turns solid black as the rest of her fur turns a shimmering crimson coloration. A cutiemark forms on her flank depicting an open book with a dagger dripping something green from it onto the page. “There we are. Always pays to look presentable.” the now red alicorn chuckles. I couldn't help but back away at the predatory grin that the mare was giving me This one I recognized as the one who clubbed me with the Sparkle cola sign. The fear became worse when she sauntered over to me, pacing around me and rubbing herself against me like she was a cat , I could have sworn she was purring too. “So what is it you want? I suppose there's some sort of deal we can make... Perhaps Gems? I know where a cache is located. Caps? Same answer. “ She smiles leaning down and nipping one of my fins causing me to turn a bit more purple as I blush. “ Perhaps a bed companion? I am quite desperate for help. I can do that too if you like.... I've not had a dragon before, could be fun for both of us and I can teach you some tricks.......” I yelp rolling away from her and falling over the basket with a wince and a crash. The red mare tilts her head a little, her smile still making me feel like I was being watched by an overly large cat who thought I was a mouse. “Oh? You are rather hesitant. Still untarnished sexually, or was that Lily you mumbled about in your sleep the only girl for you?” “What no! Lily wasn't like that..... She raised me like I was her son not.... not.. that......oh whatever, it doesn't matter any more.......” I sigh flopping down in the remains of the basket. The red mares ears perked up and I swore her grin got more evil looking to the point she made me feel like I was going to wet myself. “So she's dead? I take from the fact you are wandering the swamp alone it was not natural causes?” I dipped my head a bit eyes closing. The red alicorn was only making me feel worse. “Let me guess. Raiders? Another dragon? It was clearly something beyond your control? You wish you could have done more, but you're cursing your own lack of strength?” there was a slight chuckle at this. “You feel like a failure, not even able to protect the one you cared for and too weak to even seek justice for her death?” I winced at that a small bit of anger welling up inside me. “I'm right aren't I? You want to be left alone so you can try and die with her. How quaint, and pathetic.” I snapped at that. “What the buck do you know!? She was all I had and she's gone! You don't know what that's like!” I snarl whipping my head around to have the mare's nose right near mine as she was stretched out on the bed behind me. “You are right. I have no idea what loss is. I've killed everyone I ever cared for the moment I was required too. I know little to nothing about caring for any one other than myself. I can fake it of course, but not feel it.“ She looked sad for a moment before that dark grin returned. “But revenge? Oh now my little dragon, that I know a LOT about.” I look up at her blinking, not having he slightest doubt in my mind that she was dangerous... and probably nuts. “I'll tell you what. You help me keep Sparkle happy so I can actually spend time in my body in peace, and yes it is my body those other two are annoying tag alongs. Do that and I will train you in between shifts with her. How's that for payment? Helping you get strong enough for revenge?” “That's nice and all but I can't use magic.....” “My dear, magic isn't my thing either, before the blue git had her way, I was a rather attractive earth pony if I do say so myself, and I do. I've been around for a long while and I've learned quite a great deal. I've also trained a number of ponies including one of the followers of the Night herself. You might have seen his statue out front. I keep it around to let me know that he's dead and I'm not, I've a bit of a ego you see. So what do you say? Will you wither and die? Or show them how wrong they were to hurt you?” The creepy smile did nothing to add to her suggestion, but her words were enough. The images of those six were burned into my mind. I knew they were far stronger than me as I was. But could I let Lily go unavenged? Part of me wanted to be the better dragon like Lily wanted. To forgive them or at the very least move on with my life, not continue the cycle of killing. Another part of me was like fire, like death itself. It's teeth like swords, claws like spears as it winged around my heart like a hurricane. It fought back when I tried to suppress it burning even brighter within me like stoked coals. “Alright.” I heard myself answer. “ I'll do it.”