• Published 1st Dec 2011
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Fallout: Equestria. We're no Heroes - otherunicorn



Cyborgs Anne and her brain damaged mother Lee are forced to return to the stable that created them.

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Chapter 12: Male delivery

Chapter 12: Male delivery
"The ins and outs of life in a stable"

Excitement!

I guess that was the best word to describe the general feeling. Hearing that the exploration team had found stallions elsewhere in this Celestia forsaken hole had the stable mares bouncing if they had the physical ability, and shuffling about in glee if they didn't. A few were more subdued, showing signs of disappointment, not that they were upset stallions had been found, but upset they were no longer capable of enjoying a physical relationship. Very few seemed to remember that now the stable was open, we would have access to the many stallions on the surface. Personally I was more curious than interested. After all, I had been abstaining for my adult life, writing the whole sex thing off as a bad reminder of my stupid cybernetic body.

Something that struck me as amusing though, was that the mares really had missed the clues about Saffron, and had assumed he was impotent, or perhaps not even complete. To them, he was simply the most clad pony they had seen: so clad that not even his head was visible. None of us as had revealed his secret either. He showed us similar courtesy, so it was only fair. To be honest, maybe one mare had picked up on the clues, or maybe she simply liked his personality enough not to care. As if to emphasize that, Lana had not gone to look at the new arrivals, staying right where she was, which incidentally was right next to the mattress on which Saffron was resting. She was still clamped into her wheelchair, though it did have its front support down, so she was able to rest her forelegs.

Despite our original intention of going out to meet the stallions, Demi and I remained where we were, deciding against trying to get through the slowly moving "barricade" of enthusiastic shufflers. As it was, as soon as they had got a few paces into the corridor, they were forced to turn around and exit again, as Lee and Ruby shooed them back into the headquarters. So that was the exploration team: the two most mobile, gun toting mares in this place. That was a point. Not only had I failed to tell any of the others about the stallions being there in the first place. I had also not told them I had destroyed every cursed robot in the stable. This stable was now devoid of its evil intent, even if that evil would be best attributed to the ponies at Stable-Tec. After my victory against the diabolical program, I was in no condition to share any information; being curled up in a corner crying does have that sort of effect on communications.

The first of the "stallions" proved to be a grey foal with white mane and tail. He bounced into the room, looked around for the filly foal that had announced their imminent arrival, then scurried after her. She dodged around a couple of the mares when she saw him coming, and scarpered off in a different direction, delight on her face. I guess that was the first match: two foals that loved to play tag, enjoying a new friendship. Good luck to them. I hoped they really had a good chance to enjoy their new freedom, to grow up to be happy and healthy ponies. Dang, now I was starting to sound like a grandmother.

The next "stallion" to come in was exactly that: a stallion. He was a butter yellow unicorn with a white mane and tail. I wouldn't say he was gorgeous, but he wasn't ugly either, and to these male-starved mares, he must have looked perfect. He was not wearing any cladding either, and as far as I could tell, he was completely scar free. What the hell? He strutted in as if he owned the place, and cast his eyes over all that were here.

"Ugg!" Demi whispered to me. "I don't like the look of this fellow at all! He looks like a stuck-up ass hole."

"Well, we know who his best friend is, don't we? It's himself," I responded, "but to be fair, the silly mares have probably told him that there are no stallions down here, so he's playing it up for all he's worth."

A shy mare, again a yellow coated unicorn, though this time with a shock of two tone green hair, hobbled in after the stallion. One of her forelegs was wrapped in a brace, and she was sporting a few scars. She avoided eye contact with all of us, trying to hide behind stallion. I expected to most of the mares down here, she was invisible.

While Lana did look a little odd in the wheeled contraption we called her wheelchair, she was a very attractive and bright eyed mare. She had a certain grace to her movements too. After a brief look at the newcomer, she had turned her attention to the foals, and was quietly giggling to herself and clapping her hooves as she watched their antics. She failed to notice she had attracted the stallion's attention, and that he was interested. He announced that interest by walking straight up to her, well, as straight as he could while dodging the other mares, mattresses and other junk that filled the place, and kissing her on the little of her flank that wasn't encased in her wheelchair. She squeaked, her eyes going wide in surprise.

She turned to face him, saw who it was, and a frown creased her brow. "I beg your pardon, young fellow," she responded, "but I would appreciate it if you did not do that!"

The rebuff had him visibly stunned! Way to go Lana, knock the prick down a peg or two! The other mares started to cluster around. There were no signs of jealousy between them. They were so used to sharing everything that I don't think it even occurred to them to be jealous of each other. They merely wanted his attention too.

"What do you mean?" he huffed. "You can't turn me down, I'm your new stallion! I am Golden Glory!"

Lana laughed. So did I for that matter. "You are a bit presumptuous, aren't you, new boy!" I muttered.

"I don't care what the others may have told you," Lana gave him what could best be called an old fashioned look, "but, I am spoken for."

Golden Glory looked somewhat taken aback. "You are into mares?" he spluttered. "What a waste!"

"Pffft," Lana voiced, clearly annoyed, "Saffron Fields, would you care to educate this fellow, before I am forced to do something unladylike?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" Saffron responded in his best Steel Ranger voice, as he rose from the mattress, using his stature and armor to present himself in the most imposing way he could.

Golden Glory laughed, seemingly unimpressed by the armored stallion, sparing him little more than a glance before returning his gaze to Lana. "You are into a clad pony so bad he has to be covered in all sorts of junk just to live? That is so sad. Can he even satisfy you? Dump him. I am unscathed!"

Life support gear? I guess the heavy weaponry mounted on Saffron's armor really were forms of life support. Clearly Golden Glory didn't recognize their function. He can't have been exposed to the sentry bots in his entire life, or he may have had some clue. In fact, I wondered how he had managed to get through life without gaining a single significant scar. Either he was a coward, and good at hiding, or the robot behavior was different up there. Surely the computer hadn't been protecting males so it could continue its experiments?

Saffron sighed, the sound returning the attention of the ponies to him. "Sorry ladies, but I have been dishonest by remaining silent," he apologized as his armor began to unfold from around him, revealing him in all his saffron colored, muscled beauty. The armor finished folding itself into its luggable form at his hooves, leaving the earth pony standing tall and proud, no doubt for the benefit of the newcomer. The collective gasp of the mares was awe inspiring in its intensity.

"Wow," Lana said quietly.

"Neat armor!" said Gadget.

"You've seen inside his armor before, haven't you Anne?" Demi whispered to me. She had only seen his head without armor before now.

"Heck, I've seen inside him before!" I replied quietly. "When we first met, I blew him up."

"You have an interesting way of gaining friends, Anne," Demi commented. "I'm glad you didn't blow me up too!"

"You weren't trying to kill me. He was," I stated. "Thank goodness the incident opened his eyes to a better way of life."

Meanwhile, Golden Glory was continuing to act like a spoiled brat, or a colt with too much testosterone. "So, you are challenging me for the ownership of these mares, are you, Mister One Eye?" he asked, stretching every last inch out of his height that he could in an attempt to match Saffron's stance. There wasn't a lot of difference in their height, but in physical condition, they were worlds apart.

That comment resulted in a considerable backlash from the mares. Ownership indeed! They jeered him, some turning away, muttering things to the effect that being single was better than living with that sort of attitude. There was a disturbance at the doorway as some more ponies entered, so some of the mares went that way, hoping against hope that a foal and this arrogant prick were not the only stallions that would be joining them. Other mares turned their attention towards Saffron, somewhat puzzled by him. After all, had he revealed himself earlier, he could have had them all if he wanted. I heard some comments about him probably being turned off by crippled mares, but somepony else pointed out that he seemed to like Lana anyway.

"Lana, how did you know?" Helvetica asked her.

"I didn't!" she replied. "I liked his personality. He's fun to talk to!"

"So your relationship wasn't about sex?"

Lana giggled. "It wasn't, though that may now become a part of it!"

Meanwhile Saffron was locked eye to eye with Golden Glory, as they tried to stare each other down. "I hate to break it to you bud," Saffron eventually stated, "but this ain't the dark ages. We do not own mares. They can be our companions, partners or wives, usually at a one stallion to one mare ratio, but we do not own them. The only exception to that rule is the criminals called slavers, that seem to have it in their moronic heads that they have the right to steal a pony's life from them. By the way, I kill slavers on sight." Saffron took a step forward, forcing Golden Glory to take a step backwards, if only to keep his balance.

"Please forgive my son," an older male voice rang out over the general hubbub of miffed mares. Silence descended as everyone sought the owner of the voice. A unicorn stallion, definitely well into his thirties, had walked into the room, accompanied by a mare of a similar age. He was a deep golden color with a rusty red mane and tail, while the mare was pale grey with a very white mane and tail. Both were somewhat clad, although the design of their cladding differed substantially from that used by the mares of Level Eight. Their cladding appeared to be passive. If anything, it was more like armor. Without a pony like Gadget with the ability to build crude cybernetics and link it to a pony's brain, there would be limits to what could be achieved, though I was beginning to wonder if they needed it at all. Behind them, almost hiding, was another colt, a darker grey than the others, with a reddish tint to his otherwise grey mane and tail. I estimated him to be around the same age as Ruby: Not quite an adult, but not far from it. Like the first stallion, this one was not clad.

"And a good day to you, Sir," Saffron replied to the newcomer, breaking the silence.

"I ask that you forgive Buttermilk's arrogance, and don't harm him. He is a silly boy, despite our best efforts," the older stallion continued. "We love him nonetheless."

"Buttermilk?" We all had a good chuckle. So much for Golden Glory!

"Well done, kid. You've left a great impression!" Saffron stated. Saffron can't have been more than one or two years older than Buttermilk, but Buttermilk didn't know that, and I knew Saffron liked teasing others by referring to them as a kid, me for example. "Fear not, Sir, I had no intention of harming the youngster."

"It would seem we have misunderstood the situation here," the older stallion explained. "We were under the impression there were only mares down here. We do not wish to steal your herd."

"The deception is mine, I am afraid," Saffron admitted. "By hiding in my armor, I allowed the mares here to believe I was disabled and impotent. I will not take a mare unless I believe I can look after her, and even then, I will take only one. As your son just discovered, Lana here is that one mare."

Lana blushed. Saffron glanced over towards me, and I gave him a discrete nod. I wasn't entirely sure what approval he wanted. Was he worried I might be jealous or that I may not want another member in our team? Whatever the case, I was not going to begrudge him the friendship or love of this cheerful aqua pony.

Meanwhile, Buttermilk was trying to extract himself from the situation without being too obvious, and failing miserably.

"You're not from down here, are you boy?" the older stallion asked Saffron.

"Nope," Saffron agreed. "My companions and I dropped in a few days ago, literally."

"Ah. The strange one mentioned she came down the elevator shaft with three others," the stallion stated. He paused, as if he had forgotten something. "Oh, excuse me, my name is Rusty and this is my wife Cirrus. You've already met my oldest, Buttermilk. My youngest, Cloud is chasing the filly over there." He nodded towards the foals. "And hiding behind us is Shadow. Wasn't always his name, but it fits. Buttermilk's mare is Pineapple."

"Pleased to make you acquaintance," Saffron said. "I'm Saffron Fields. This is my mare, Lana. My traveling companions are Demi, the teenage filly, Anne, the small one, and Lee, the strange one."

A teenage filly, am I? No, that wasn't what he said. I was the small mare. Fair enough. It was vague enough for me to introduce myself however I liked, as per Saffron's blab no personal secrets policy.

"Now that you know who I am referring to, I should point out that Anne is our leader, and a very capable one at that. She is the one ultimately responsible for freeing us all from those cursed robots," Saffron stated, his voice matter of fact.

Rusty looked at me, then raised his eyebrows. My demeanor was one of subdued grief. I had a bad case of bed-mane, my coat was somewhat ruffled and unruly from the recently removed bandages, and I had a white pegasus wing wrapped around me, hugging me tightly. If my appearance declared anything, leader was not it!

"Special Agent Anne of the SL04 black ops team," I introduced myself, with a slight smirk. "I'm a thirty four year old combat cyborg."

If only eyeballs really did pop out, this fellow's would have. After a few moments, astonishment was replaced by skepticism.

"I wasn't born yesterday," Rusty stated, looking at me with something that resembled scorn.

"I wasn't either, Rusty. I was born thirty four years ago," I quietly voiced.

"It's the truth," Ruby interjected from beside Rusty. "There is no way a regular pony could survive what she's been though over the last few days. She was shot with eleven bullets in the last battle! And she destroyed more robots than the rest of us together."

"It doesn't pay to underestimate that one," Saffron agreed, tapping his eye patch. "She nearly put me in a box the first day we met. My fault."

"So am I to believe that in a few short days, you've taken command of all of the mares down here, and defeated all of the robots?"

"She didn't take command!" Helvetica objected. "We gave it to her!"

"Best move ever!" a few other mares chorused, as if it was something they had practiced before.

Rusty remained silent almost too long, then said, "This isn't some sort of initiation joke, is it? You are all serious, aren't you?"

"Dead serious," Strawberry Cream stated. "I pulled the bullets out of Anne myself. She's only just had the bandages removed."

The stallion remained silent, trying to fathom me.

"I'm no longer an agent for SL04, and haven't been for fifteen years," I admitted. "These days I try to make a living as a repair pony, though lately I seem to be doing a lot more fighting than I like. And for what it's worth, everything we have done here has been a team effort. There were simply times when I was the best tool for the job."

Hoof stomping applause broke out, along with some cheering, and comments of appreciation.

"Buttermilk, son. I hope you are paying attention." I heard Rusty state. "You really could learn some things from these mares."

"Yes, Father," Buttermilk replied blushing.


That had been interesting. These ponies from Level Five were practically a different culture to the mares down here. That all of the younger males were uninjured had not gone unnoticed among the mares either. After the initial introductions, or perhaps more accurately, confrontation, Helvetica had guided Rusty and Cirrus to the two side by side mattresses I had cleaned, inviting me to accompany them. Naturally, the invitation extended to Demi. There, we settled as a group, facing each other. The two immobile earth pony mares that were occupying the mattresses became part of the group as if by default. The two mares greeted us. The little pink and purple bundle that was Helvetica's daughter climbed up onto the mattress next to Helvetica, gave her a quick hug, then curled up beside her.

"This is Violet," Helvetica indicated the pale purple mare with the yellow and white striped mane and tail, "and this is Chicory." Chicory was a subtle light blue with a pink and white striped mane and tail. Both had green eyes. "And this is my daughter Arial, though she seems to have fallen asleep." Helvetica indicated her little bundle of joy. No further introductions were needed.

"Gadget hasn't organized cladding for you yet?" I asked the two prone mares.

"Alas, no. When she saw how successful Lana's wheelchair was, she tossed the cladding she was working on onto the shelves, and has been tinkering with broken sentry bots ever since," Chicory explained.

"I think she's waiting for you to sculpt new metalwork for us," Violet added, "though you have been somewhat occupied of late."

"Oh, sorry," I said, thinking of me curled up having a pity party for myself.

"Don't be sorry. We can't expect you to spend all of your time doing things for us. It wouldn't be fair. You need time to recover as well," Violet assured me.

"It can wait. At the moment, there are things we need to know, and that is why Helvetica has gathered you all here," Chicory stated.

"Rusty, I will be blunt, as what all of us in this little group, in fact all ponies from this level want to know," Helvetica stated, "is how the hell did so many of you survive without getting a Celestia damned scratch, while we were down here getting the life beaten out of us?"

"Are you working with them?" Chicory asked.

"Or did you form some sort of pact?" Violet queried. "Why should we trust you?"

"Buttermilk is at least honest in his arrogance. What about you?" Helvetica finished.

Wow, serious third degree time! I wondered briefly why Helvetica had chosen these particular mares to help with the questioning. Were they skilled at it? Maybe, though I doubt they had a lot of practice. I hadn't been grilled like this... or had I? Then it occurred to me why they had either been chosen, or volunteered for the task; they could not help in any other way at the moment. Violet and Chicory were just lying here, while all those that could move around were busy doing things, or taking their shift at sleeping.

"I have the data archives from the maneframe. Everything can be checked, if needed," I volunteered.

Rusty shook his head slowly. "I am sad that you are suspicious of us, but like you, we are victims of the Overmare's incompetence."

I now knew this was no longer the case, but was interested to hear what he had to say on the matter. Helvetica had been with me when we discovered that, so more than likely the other mares knew this too, but they also remained silent. "Go on," I said. "Tell us about the Overmare."

Cirrus was the one that answered. "Many years ago, back when Rusty and I were still foals, our fathers tried to find a way out of the stable. There weren't many of us, and we were all living in the clinic at the time. The Robots had been quieter than usual for a while, so our fathers were trying to take advantage of the lull. To find the way out, they had to climb up two levels. Of course the big door was sealed, and they could not open it. While trying to find a way to get it to open, they managed to hack into the Overmare's terminal, and there they read that she was part of a test program, and blamed herself for accidently doing something to it that made the robots kill ponies."

Rusty picked up the tale. "They fell foul of the robots then. Only my father made it back from that expedition, and he died many years ago. No one has been up to Level One since then, and we have no record of exactly what was on the Overmare's terminal, so I am afraid we can not give you any more information than that. Nor can we be sure how accurate what we told you is."

I nodded. "That is what the Overmare's logs would suggest," I commented. "Helvetica and I retrieved them from the maneframe yesterday. I think it was yesterday."

"What about your physical condition?" Chicory asked. "I've been beaten so badly I can't even stand, yet with the exception of Pineapple, you guys can all walk without trouble. Some of you aren't even scarred."

Both Rusty and Cirrus looked stunned at the comment. "Why don't your unicorns heal you?"

"Obviously because we can't!" Helvetica stated, sounding somewhat annoyed. "Gadget is the only one of us with any serious magical ability, and her abilities do not include healing. The rest of us have been bashed and zapped on the horn so often we are lucky if we can do basic levitation. Our most skilled with healing is Strawberry Cream, and while she is good at manipulating tools, her actual healing magic is limited to casting spells to help relieve our pain. Med-X works better. Of course we try to encourage the foals to learn healing magic, but we don't have the skills ourselves, or books on the subject to show them how. Even the ones that could do a little healing would get zapped and bashed too, and end up losing the ability. We've been using alcohol and recycled bandages as our only medical supples for generations now."

"What about Pineapple then? She's very lame," I asked, pointing out the obvious contradiction to Rusty's implication. "After all, you are all unicorns, aren't you?"

"That is a fresh injury. The robots cut her leg off at the knee a few weeks ago. We managed to reattach it, but it will take time to fully recover," Cirrus explained.

"Lucky her," I muttered to myself.

"And what do you mean by that?" Rusty asked brusquely, having obviously heard me.

"Anne didn't find her leg when it was cut off," Demi interjected, tapping my armored foreleg.

"Ah, sorry, that would be frustrating," Rusty apologized.

"Is the lack of scars on your boys due to magic too?" Violet asked, trying to re rail the conversation.

"No, and that's the strange thing," Rusty admitted. "As we said earlier, we used to live in the clinic on Level Three. That was until about twenty years ago. Around that time Buttermilk was born. There were very few of us left by then. It was just me and Cirrus, and Pineapple's parents and older sister. The behavior of the robots changed overnight. They started disabling sections of the stable we needed to survive. Food stopped being produced, lights would fail and so on. Eventually, they attacked us en masse, driving us out of Level Three and down to Level Four. We managed to fortify ourselves there for a year or so. That was when Pineapple was born. Eventually the robots resorted to the same sort of tactics. Food stopped being produced. Lights would go out. Water stopped flowing. We had stores though, so we stayed put as long as we could. Eventually the robots attacked again, and drove us down to Level Five."

"And in Level Five we found hydroponics, and unbelievably there was still something edible growing there, so we set up there, and defended as best we could. This time the robots couldn't starve us out. We would use our horns for light whenever they shut down the lighting, so they stopped trying, and we were able to filter drinking water from the waste water used to feed hydroponics," Cirrus explained.

"A few years later, we noticed another change in the behavior of the robots," Rusty continued. "By that time we had Shadow too. One day he managed to get cornered by the robots. They tried to drive him down to Level Six but they did not harm him. The robots had simply stopped physically attacking the males. They'd zap us on occasion, but only when they were trying to drive us out of hydroponics, or wanted us out of their way while they were hunting our mares. So all we had to do to keep our mares safe, was block their way and withstand a few zaps. Those of us that had armor worked some mesh into it, and earthed it via our hooves, so even zapping us had little effect. That worked well until a year ago, when they managed to get Pineapple's mother and sister anyway, and they tore them apart. Her father committed suicide after that, so we've been treating Pineapple as one of own since then. When the robots found her father's body, they acted really weird. They fussed around him for hours."

"You have your foals late," Helvetica commented, not really expecting an answer. It was as if the robot atrocities were so mundane to her as not to warrant comment.

"A few weeks ago, the robots became very aggressive again," Cirrus said. "And they managed to get to Pineapple. That's when they cut off her leg."

"That day, the only way we could protect our mares was for all four males to lie on top of them, and literally shield them with our bodies," Rusty explained, "and that was hardly the ideal situation for trying to reattach the poor mare's leg, but we managed. Then around a week ago, the robots changed their behavior yet again. Instead of attacking, they just hovered around looking menacing, but always leaving the way to the lower levels clear."

"They always left the way to the lower levels clear."

"Obviously they wanted us to go down, which is exactly why we wouldn't," Rusty commented.

"And then yesterday they went berserk, and all raced up to Level Four, where they beat each other to pieces. Shadow snuck up there for a look afterwards, and told us he couldn't find a single operational robot, just dozens of wrecked bots and lots of pieces. And then this morning the red filly, and that strange mare that walks around on her rear hooves showed up, and invited us to come down here," Cirrus concluded.

Silence descended on the group. The three Level Eight mares exchanged glances, then turned their heads towards me.

"What do you think, Anne?" Helvetica asked.

"It makes a lot of sense, actually," I said, "The changes in robot behavior..."

"Corresponded with events down here." Helvetica nodded, finished my sentence.

"And if we consider the stable as a whole, the maneframe was trying to correct a problem in order to carry out its program," I added.

"What makes sense?" Rusty asked. "And what how does this relate to the Stable-Tec experiment? Did the maneframe think that males were tough enough, so it was trying to toughen up the females? If so, why kill them? Without them we can't breed!"

I shook my head. "I'll let you in on a few nasty little Stable-Tec secrets. The Overmare was a victim of the experiment, not the cause of the problem. What your father read in her logs were lies from Stable-Tec. The real experiment was..." I paused as I accessed the log stored in my Pipgirl. "Here we go... covert experiment number 2445C. Operation Hopelessness. Through extreme duress determine the time needed to destroy the hope of ponies in a controlled environment."

"That is.... diabolical," Cirrus expressed her disgust. Rusty just sat there, his mouth hanging open.

"That would have been why the death of Pineapple's father was so interesting to the robots. In him, their experiment had succeeded, so they were trying to gather data, or record the event or something. Nonetheless, his death was also a failure, in that it was the death of one pony, not the death of all ponies, and he was a pony they clearly wanted to live. He was male. Your group had males..." I said.

"And we didn't," Chicory added. "We were why the robots were trying to drive you down stairs."

"That way, the experiment would not be terminated by an unforeseen hitch, instead of continuing towards its programmed conclusion, which admittedly would likely be just as fatal," I added.

"So basically, you and your sons were the maneframe's answer to our problem, but you just wouldn't take the hint!" Violet stated.

"I think they were trying to kill your mares, so you would have no reason to stay on Level Five. With no mares left, you would be more inclined to wander, to go looking to see if any other ponies had survived. So if you had come down here twenty years ago, Pineapple's family may well still be alive." I concluded.

We fell silent, then reverted to small talk as two mares shuffled past, passing us each a bottle of water and a bowl of yeast extract. Little Arial woke up to eat.

"Something puzzles me," Rusty stated. "How did you end up with only mares down here in the first place? Did they target your males? That wouldn't make sense."

"Specifically, no, our males were not targeted. Historically we lost a lot of our males because they were the ones who made up the robot hunting parties. Our records show that the males were also the ones more likely to rebel or head off as loners, or try to become leaders. They always ended up getting killed." Helvetica explained. "Then it got bad. We think there was a mutation. Most of the older stallions died of their accumulated injuries or age, and eventually we were left with three half-brothers, and after that no more males were born. About half the time a mare will miscarry early in her pregnancy. We think these miscarriages are the males. Eventually it dropped down to just one stallion who held on until last year. We are probably all carriers of these bad genes."

"That bloody reactor," I muttered. It hadn't been emitting much in the way of radiation that I had noticed, but with it in such poor condition, occasional releases of magical radiation from it were not out of the question.

"Anyway," Helvetica announced, "I think we can trust you. Your family can join with us if you wish, or go your own way, though I would recommend the former, as you also have no experience outside the stable. We are leaving this place, and will be doing so as soon as we are ready. While the mares are used to sharing a single stallion, and a lot of them are excited about the arrival of you and your sons, some seem to have failed to consider that we no longer need a replacement stallion anyway, as we will have access to more on the surface. Interact with them as is mutually agreeable, but make sure that dopey son of yours understands that no one is going to own anyone else!"


Footnote: Maximum Level. Perk: What perk? You were too busy crying.

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