Fallout Equestria: A Raiders Mark

by Vocal Sonder

Surviving

As the sun rose over a dry and crusted land, tiny grains of grey sand made their westward journey over the cracked and mottled surface of The Qual in wispy lines and ebbs.

The air like it did every other day of the year turned to its grungy shade of brownish-green in the blazing noonday sun, slowly turning the ground beneath to a sickly shade of vomit grey. The ground itself crackling up like flesh under a torch.

Any grit or grime that didn’t find purchase in these etchings of solar punishment found their way up and over the hills to the plains of a once great lake. Each grain seeking its final resting place in the wastelands beyond.

Not a sound was heard from this blasted wasteland. Almost a hundred years of unrecorded punishment had driven all life from the once temperate marshes and lowlands into the mountains beyond. The now hazy horizons merely showed the peaks of mountaintops, as a constant reminder to anything below of the unimaginable distances the landscape entailed.

The only thing one could find out in the dry reaches was the thirst. The calm silence. The pure feeling of isolation. Always under the taunting presence of the clouds surrounding the southeastern crags.

It was in this desolate horror that a small colt trotted. Head down, covered in a ragged shawl made from scavenged wagon linings.

Nothing could be seen under the patchwork brim of leather and vinyl except for the faintest glimmer of amber eyes and the stunted end of a parched muzzle caked in grime. Outsiders would surely have marked the lone figure as a walking corpse, neither dead or alive. But if anyone managed to look closely enough they might see a few drops of sweat manage to escape from the folds of the shawl.

A brown coat of earthy hues hung suspended above the ground on thin weak legs. Tufts of matted greenish grey tail hairs blew in the winds with abandon as one by one they were scorched free by the elements and the sundering heat.

When the wind abated, a small sparkle-cola canteen could be heard sloshing quietly in the air. The caps constant ping against the tin a steady reminder of progress, never straying out of sync with the legs that carried it.

Twin saddlebags ill strapped to the frail haunches of its owner half hid the meandering legs and blurred the fur with sweat. Even with the leathers almost completely empty the fur matted and rubbed free under the grueling march as the hours rolled on and on and the miles disappeared like the beads sweat on the sands.

The two small eyes were locked forwards. Gazing without truly seeing the ground being covered, to the distant cracks and blemishes of the lake bed beyond. Tiny mounds of piled earth and sand dotted the nearly pristine view and like everything else they soon disappeared under his hooves, and were left behind.

After some time the little colt tilted his head up at a lull in the wind, barely taking in the surroundings, and stretched his neck to its fullest extent hoping to snatch a glimpse of his unknown destination. Tiny grains of grit and browned grass speckled his muzzle in warring patches. Much of which stuck to the corners of his eyes and nose. Lifting a hoof, he made to wipe away the caked on grime. Before he could however, a sudden gust of wind lifted even more sand from the ground and aimed it directly into his upturned nose.

Hacking and coughing, he spat out a wad of the grime into the dirt and fervently tried rubbing his nose and face free of the granules that always stuck irritatingly close to the gummy corners of his eyes.

A second later and a mildly cleaner face the better, he looked forlornly at the ground in between his two front hooves and watched the last traces of the wad he had spit, bake from the earth. Even in the cover of his shadow the moisture was soaked up greedily by the wanting sun. He sighed and started forward again wishing that, if anything, he'd have just stallion’ed up and ate the grit… if only to have not lost that grimy glob of moisture.

---

It was maybe an hour later that the colt risked stopping at what used to be a small hillock and rested under the shade afforded by an old oaken post driven into the dirt by hooves that were far older than he could have possibly imagined.

The the dirty saddlebags he carried were now lying in a heap at his hooves as his muzzle roamed around inside. In a moment a strip of meat looking nearly identical to the bag was pulled free from its holdings and laid next to the canteen. After picking a bramble from his foreleg he managed find the strength to reach down and grab the meat in his hooves.

He sat, chewed, and rested in the silence as the post shaded a hardly a third of his cloaked head from the beating afternoon sun.

---

Hours later he took the last sip from his canteen. The bitter liquid dribbled down his aching throat and stung the back of his nostrils but he grimaced through the ordeal anyways. After strapped the canteen back into its place he continued on. The once quiet sloshing sound was replaced by the metallic ping of empty metal but died from the air as the wind picked up. The canteen fluttered haphazardly like a limp bit of cloth as more and more sand blew into the colts hooded face and packed itself into the recesses of the garment.

A dry sob could be heard, but it could have easily been the wind.

---

Much later, the colt sat alone in the middle of a huge stretch of what once was a marsh. Old fossilized cattails stuck up here and there. Each one as sharp as a needle and sometimes just as thin.

The sun was hanging nearly at its lowest point in the sky and bathed the land in a sickly glimmer. It's halo just now beginning to glow with the telltale orange of evening the mountaintops started to outwardly glow like the tips of an unearthly fire. Soon it would dip low enough to not be a hindrance to the cold night air that wound wind its way down from the high peaks and onto the flats. But that would not happen just yet.

For now, the pile of rags and pony sat. Motionless. His eyes hung in a shallow gaze towards a rock about the size of a playing card . The pointed end of a well kept blade held in between a weathered set of fore-hooves was dutifully aimed right towards at the stone that lay just in front of him. The winds had shifted direction letting more grime and dirt built up against his tiny rump and into the folds of his hood but he refused to move from where he sat to shake the accumulation away. Grit achingly wedged itself in every uncomfortable place imaginable but his hooves never moved an inch.

Almost in a state befitting the stone he stayed, willing the seconds onwards with his small, hurried heartbeats. The darkening navy sky seemed to mock his presence by sheer lack of movement and even the last rays of light seemed to stand still as if the world was on pause. The wind died and everything was still for a time.

The specter of evening crept closer to the foal. Breaths quickened in anticipation. A small amount of sand sifted from his hood back to its earthly home as the sun's haze faded from the ground in front of him.

When twilight fell he stuck.

The blade sailed forward in a decisive ark fueled solely by desperation and fear. It struck home with a sickening crunch and an errant spat of blood hit the cooling earth to slowly soak in.

Shrieking sounds burst to life as his thrust skewered the tiny creature to the dirt beyond. An ear rending scream akin to a dozen forks on glass emanated from the end of the knife as the small thing thrashed about in furious anguish. Rearing into the golden rays of sunset the colt lept up and brought his hind hoof onto the creatures skull, crushing it utterly as its magical camouflage dissolved from its wriggling form.

Silence. The creature wriggled no more as the colt deftly lopped off the two pronged stinger at the base of the lizard and flung it from his steel a distance away. Safe from the poisonous danger his fuzzy mouth latched onto the still dying creature and started to suck at the coppery juices before any could manage to dribble towards the ground.

A few minutes of determined slurping and gnawing ensued and only ended when the lizard was merely a shell of its former self. A tough, mangled strip of leather and bone that hardly resembled its former shape he bit at the tough interior eeking out the last of the available sustenance. If he could've eaten the lizard whole he would have, but the tough leather resisted his every attempt to peel into tiny "edible" strips.

He thought about taking the knife that was still at his side to cut the leather into pieces for consumption but thought better of the endeavor and instead was used to work the small embedded bones out of the carcass. His mouth greedily crunched them along with the rest of his meal. Eventually after a few vein moments of search he was forced to give up the hunt for more edible scraps and placed both the carcass and knife back into his saddlebags.

Somewhat refreshed, he wiped his muzzle with a fetlock and licked at the dried fluids that still managed to cling to the dirty fur. Looking up, a contented sigh escaped his chest as he once again started to trot his tired limbs into the distance. This time however with a bit more fervor.