Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 20 - Over Under Sideways Down

Memories from other ponies feel different than my own. They’re sharp and solid and frozen in place like ice. Maybe that’s because all the ones I’ve seen have been recordings fixed into place with silicon and glass. You’d think being like that would make them more real than my own memories, but there was something indescribably alive about my own thoughts that the recordings just didn’t have. It was the difference between seeing the picture of a bird, still on the page and in such focus that you could count every feather and take all afternoon examining the patterns on its wings; and seeing that bird in your garden. A few moments right in front of your eyes, maybe lingering for whole minutes at a time, but never really still, and eventually it ends and flits away and you’re left with an impression of the thing that’s greater than the sum of its parts, even if you couldn’t count the feathers.

That’s how I knew I was dreaming. Even with the cold biting into me, I could feel that artificial too-perfect edge that made it almost like an album of preserved moments than a continuous experience.

Also I was a unicorn, and a distant and mostly unconscious part of me knew that wasn’t quite right.

“Did we really have to come all the way out to Stalliongrad?” Destiny asked from my lips, her voice higher-pitched and less sure than I was used to hearing. “They used to send ponies here to punish them!”

“It’s about as far from Canterlot as we can get,” her father said. Really, it was far from everything. They were trudging through the tundra towards a brightly-painted marker and a few shipping containers that had been delivered so recently they hadn’t even been covered in snow yet. “You know the Boss Mare was getting really worried about the Ministries looking over our shoulders.”

“She’s worried about everything,” Destiny said. “Ponies are saying the war isn’t going to last. It’s just bluffing on both sides. Nopony wants to fight, they just don’t want to back down first.”

“I hope they’re right,” her father said. “The Boss isn’t too sure. She showed me a few things that made me think…” he stopped in the fetlock-deep snow and looked up at the sky. “She told me ‘ponies haven’t seen enough of the horrors of war to understand why it needs to be avoided.’”

Destiny laughed. “She says that like she’s not a pony!”

Her father turned to her and smiled, reaching over to ruffle her mane.

“Dad, no! You’re getting snow down my neck!”

“She means well. And when things do calm down, we’ll be thankful for the privacy. And the cheap land! We’ve got enough acreage out here to build anything we want! We’ll have to work out of a little prefab while things are being built, but I’ve got plans.”

“Is the prefab here?” Destiny asked, following her dad to the marker. It was just a length of wood, spray-painted in neon to stand out from the snow and driven into the wood to give delivery ponies something to see when they started dropping off supplies like the shipping crates in a loose circle around them.

“Not yet. I wanted to bring you out here before we started changing things. I wanted you to be here for the most important moment of this whole enterprise, Destiny.”

“What moment?” Destiny asked, confused.

He picked up a shovel. “The day we first break ground on the BrayTech Cosmodrome!” He knelt down and offered the shovel to her. Destiny picked it up and I felt the weight in my hooves. It felt momentous, even then. “I want you to be the first one to start changing this world to fit our vision.”

Destiny nodded and took a deep breath.

She jabbed it down into the permafrost and levered out a chunk. Memories twisted together right at the end and turned into a nightmare of falling forward into that carved-out valley, pebbles turning into boulders and the earth rushing up to meet me.

---

I woke up with a gasp like I’d been holding my breath for an hour. Everything hurt, all the way down to my bones. It was also pitch black. And when I tried to move, I was caught in some kind of net. It was the kind of situation that made a pony reach deep inside themselves to find that core of determination and problem-solving… and end up coming back with the scared, panicking animal that made even the most sensible pony feel an urge to stampede.

I flailed around, trying to fight my way free of whatever I was caught in. Every motion carried pain with it, an ache in my muscles and a feeling in my joints like they were just slightly out of place. My right hoof started moving on its own and I could feel it fighting me for control, like a reflex gone wrong. The blade snapped free and tore at the material around me and dim light poured in, and that was how I knew I wasn’t blind yet. I pulled myself free through that hole, fighting my way towards fresh air and sunlight.

“Chamomile, calm down!” Destiny yelled, as I dragged myself out. I became vaguely aware that she’d been talking since I’d woken up and I’d been too busy having a panic attack to actually listen. That first hit of fresh air turned on the few extra brain cells I needed.

“Sorry,” I gasped, taking quick, sucking breaths. “I just… how long was I out?”

I got my first real look at what was around me. I was standing on dirt. Dirt! I’d made it down to the ground more-or-less alive. More than that, it might have been the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. It was nearly worth the pain I was in.

Huge plants, like the bigger brother of the scraggly trees I’d seen clinging to the tops of mountains, rose up all around me. Smaller shrubs and ferns and flowers grew all around them, most of which I’d never seen before. Even the ones I knew I’d only seen in books before. It was wild and wonderful and greener than anything I’d ever seen.

“Over an hour,” Destiny said. “I couldn’t wake you up. I was… I was really worried.” She sounded even more miserable than I did. "I tried getting anypony on the radio but even DRACO can't get a signal. Something here is causing too much interference."

"Guess that means we can't call Quattro and tell her we made it down," I sighed.

I shook my head, trying to clear it, and everything jerked and swam like something had come loose inside.

“I feel like crap,” I groaned. “I think I have a concussion.”

“It’s... “ She hesitated. “I think it was worse than that. You fell a long way. I couldn’t do any medical checks with the armor offline. That lightning hit us worse than any shock grenade could.”

“That explains why it feels so heavy,” I grunted. There was no point wearing it if it wasn’t working. I unclipped the helmet, and Destiny floated herself free, the lights in the helmet’s visor barely lighting up at all when she spoke.

“Just be careful, okay? If you’re in shock you might not know how badly you’re hurt,” she warned, tilting one way and then the other trying to get a look at me.

I took a deep breath. That deep breath helped calm me down almost as much as just seeing the beauty around me. The air had an odd faint smell like sulfur that made me think back to the Smokestack and the volcanic ash there. Over that was wet dirt and a million other scents I couldn’t name.

“Trust me, I can feel how sore I am,” I assured her, carefully removing the armor piece by piece, resting the backplate on a rock. DRACO whirred and started moving, chirping and making unhappy sounds. “At least the rifle seems okay.”

Destiny floated down to look into the bulky screen of the square scope.

“It was designed for field use, so it was shielded pretty heavily,” Destiny noted. “Apparently better than the armor.”

“It’s probably because the ballutes were connected right to the frame instead of being grounded,” I muttered, cutting the bolts away and pulling the jury-rigged thing free. “Herr Doktor didn’t have time to actually finish the stupid thing.”

“It’s going to take a while to self-repair, but the new fusion core means there’s power to do it,” Destiny said. “It might be a good idea to get some spare scrap metal, but…”

“But?”

“This is going to sound a little embarrassing, but I think I found one minor problem with having the Vector Trap system instead of regular saddlebags.”

I groaned, seeing where this was going. “We can’t get into them with the armor offline?”

“Yeah. Which… also means we can’t get into the medical supplies. No healing potions or Med-X.”

“I could really use some of each,” I said. I looked at all the life around me. “Is this really the surface? This isn’t at all the way they told us it would be. It’s beautiful.”

“It’s definitely the surface,” Destiny said. “Actually, this is pretty much how I remember things. I was expecting it to be a lot worse after a big war.” She floated over to DRACO again. “Only trace amounts of radiation, but this valley isn’t on any of the maps we’ve got.”

“We must have landed way off-course,” I said. “I guess that’s not a surprise. I got knocked out when we started tumbling.”

Destiny floated back to me. “Maybe. But we’d have to go something like a hundred miles to leave the edge of the map. I suppose it might be possible if the ballute caught the wind the right way. I was pretty out of it too -- without power the thaumoframe doesn’t do much to boost my horn’s magic.”

“...Your horn?”

“Well, yeah. How did you think I was doing magic? There’s a reason the helmet still has a horn, Chamomile. I left a little bit of myself in there. Literally.” She bobbed in an obvious invisible shrug. “I think technically this makes me a demilich? I’d have to get my old O&O books to look it up.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “But okay. I’m carrying around part of your corpse. I guess that’s actually less weird than carrying around your vengeful ghost, so we’ll call that one no big deal.”

“Exactly!” Destiny agreed. “I’m glad you see things my way.”

A chill ran down my spine. I got a sense that somepony was looking at me, and I turned around, following the feeling like it was a real thing.

Up on a high ridge of rock, an old, bearded stallion looked down at me. Tattered robes hid most of his form except his piercing eyes.

“Looks like we might have found our first native,” Destiny said.

“Do you think they’ll still speak Equestrian, or--”

He looked to the side. I followed his gaze and spotted movement. It was just enough warning that I was able to start to dodge and took a bullet to my left shoulder instead of my neck. The pain blossomed in sharp focus compared to the rest of my aches and I fell to the ground in a heap, which I am going to claim was a tactical decision because it meant the next two bullets went over me instead of into me.

I half-rolled onto my side and crawled behind a rock, staying low.

Destiny dropped down next to me. “Let me see your shoulder.” She gently pushed at my wing and examined my wound. “This isn’t as bad as I was expecting.”

“It doesn’t feel great,” I retorted through gritted teeth. I could feel her telekinesis around the edges of the hole. I watched her pull a bullet from just beneath the skin.

She held it up, and I could see how the tip was deformed and bent. “It might hurt but it didn’t penetrate. Your dermal plating stopped it.”

“Great. Now how do I keep them from shooting me again?” I asked, peeking around the edge of the rock I was hiding behind.

“Maybe try asking nicely?” Destiny suggested. “You haven’t been here long enough to make enemies yet.”

I saw the pony who’d shot me stand up, rifle held in his battle saddle. He was wearing spiky armor that looked halfway between sports gear and the kind of thing you’d only expect ponies to wear in private and involved whips, leather, and explaining away bruises later. I was more worried about the look in his eyes that screamed ‘I’m on a lot of drugs, but not the ones I should be on.’

“I don’t think nicely is gonna work,” I said. I tested my left hoof. It was sore and I wasn’t gonna be happy about putting weight on it, but it wasn’t going to fall off or stop working, which was about all I could ask for.

That’s when bullets started coming from other directions. Shots hit the dirt next to me and I decided the small rock I was hiding behind wasn’t really amazing cover.

“Where did all these guys even come from?” I asked, forcing myself to move and getting behind one of the massive trees. Bark and splinters flew into the air as bullets slammed into the wood.

“They must have seen us fall,” Destiny said. “We’re lucky they didn’t find us sooner. You were out for a long time.”

“Maybe,” I said, but something didn’t feel right about that.

Destiny peeked out from behind my flank. She was using me for extra cover. I couldn’t blame her, since I was apparently moderately bullet-resistant. “I don’t think I can manage a shield without the power from the thaumoframe, but I might be able to get a force bolt off. One force bolt.”

“I’ve got a knife,” I said. I held up my right forehoof and snapped the blade out again. It still felt twitchy, but at least I had some control over it. “I’m going to go for the one I spotted first. You keep your eyes open and take a shot at the ones off to the side. I don’t know where they’re hiding, but they’ll probably pop up once they see me.”

“Got it, chief,” Destiny said, and I imagined a salute with the way she tilted her head. There was nothing for it. I bolted for the pony that had shot me, hoofblade at the ready. It was only about twenty meters, and I stayed low. Thankfully they seemed to have terrible aim, and when Destiny fired off a bolt of crimson magic, they stopped shooting for the critical few seconds I needed to get all the way to the pervert with the rifle and bondage gear.

He looked up at me in surprise when I jumped over his cover and tackled him. I didn’t like the idea of killing ponies, but I’d done it a few times and it was starting to become a chore like any other. I stabbed him in the chest, and sort of expected him to just go limp and die.

The pony gasped when the air was driven out of him, then grabbed for me with a crazed light in his eyes, trying to bite me and throw me off at the same time and driving the blade in deeper.

“Bucking--” I swore, holding him down with my left hoof and pulling my other hoof free, stabbing him again. “Just… die!” I stabbed him a few more times and then got one in his head. He finally stopped moving more than tiny, dying twitches. “I don’t know what drugs he was on but I need to make sure I don’t take them,” I said.

“Cammy, look at this,” Destiny said.

I got off the pervert and got a closer look at him. His blood was dark, with an odd rusty brown tinge to it, and some of what I had thought was armor was actually growing out of his skin.

“No,” I whispered. “This isn’t what I think it is, is it?” I cut the straps of his battle saddle and swore. He was covered in metallic, spiky growths. New plastic arteries and veins pulsed between them, the machine parts of him not quite dead yet. It was like a steel cancer eating away at him and I was way too familiar with it.

“It’s SIVA,” Destiny confirmed. “It doesn’t look exactly the same as the batch that destroyed your home, but I’d recognize it anywhere.”

I nodded. I could feel it in my right hoof and my chest and, well, my whole body. There was a pulse in time with the fading lights of the implants growing out of the crazed pony. A connection that was making my own infection worse.

“They didn’t just stumble on us. I woke up because they were close enough to make my infection start itching,” I said.

“I don’t understand, though. How could SIVA be here?” Destiny asked.

“We’ll figure that out once we’re not being shot at,” I said. “We need another distraction so I can get around to the others.” I pulled the stallion’s rifle free of the battle saddle he was wearing and looked at it. It was as corrupted as he was. The grip moved when I touched it, trying to conform to my hoof and feeling like it was giving me a hoofshake. I dropped the gun. “Nope. Not using that.”

“Maybe we could start a fire and smoke them out?” Destiny suggested.

I looked around at the lush copse of trees.

“I have a stupid idea I want to try first,” I said. I peeked out at where I’d put DRACO down on top of a rock. “DRACO! Take a shot at any enemies you can see from there!”

The rifle made a loud beep of acknowledgement and the barrel moved a few degrees before it fired, the rapport sharper and louder than the weapons the attacking ponies were using. The shooting from them stopped again, and I bolted to the next bit of cover, working my way towards them.

“That’s not a dumb idea,” Destiny whispered approvingly. “A turret is just a targeting talisman and a gun, basically. DRACO has that and more. I didn’t think about giving him verbal commands like that.”

“It’s always anticipating what ponies want and listening in,” I whispered back. I could see one of the ponies. It was a mare, just as twisted up by SIVA as the stallion I’d already seen. One of her back hooves was just a metal spire coming to a sharp point.

I took a breath and jumped into the air, flapping a few times for altitude and dropping straight down onto her, stabbing her in the back and putting all my weight into it. I felt bones break, and she struggled for a few more seconds until I twisted the knife and cut something deep inside her that made her implants flash and go dark. She gasped for breath a few times after that and went still.

A pony poked his head out to see the noise, and DRACO helpfully removed it for him. The rest of the pony slumped to the ground. Everything went quiet.

“I think there was at least one more,” I said.

“Maybe DRACO got him?” Destiny said.

There was a loud chatter, like a motor going wrong and trying to tear itself apart. A half-dozen bullets slammed into my right side. I felt two of them bounce off my right hoof with a sound like raindrops hitting a metal sheet, but the other four did not bounce off. Three of those at least had the decency to stop when they hit that strange, calloused-feeling layer under my skin. One was rude enough that it didn’t stop there and invited itself into the party to meet my meat.

I obligingly fell over, bleeding my own blood, which was something I hated doing.

“Ow,” I gasped, unable to really say more than that. The effort of even complaining about the pain felt like it might kill me. It reminded me of being shot in the head, except instead of everything turning into a psychedelic mess because of brain damage, the pain was just making me disassociate to the point I think I felt my ghost leaving my body. The ragged-looking crazy pony who’d shot me stepped out of cover, stalking up close enough that I could smell the hot metal scent hanging around him even over the coppery taste in my mouth.

Destiny moved to hover between us like she could do something to stop him. I tried to gather enough strength to do something, anything.

Somepony shouted a warcry, which surprised all three of us. A blurry shape slammed into the psychotic pony, and it took me a moment to realize it was my vision that was blurry, not the one saving my butt.

There was a brief struggle, and that was long enough for me to get back to my hooves and put the pain in a little box in the back of my mind that I could deal with later. I stumbled towards the two rolling around on the ground, grabbed the one in spiky bondage gear and carrying a gun, and stabbed her before kicking her to the side. At this point I was covered in blood and a lot of it was mine, so I collapsed back to my knees.

“Ay yah, you’re in bad shape,” the other pony said. Or not a pony. My vision sharpened a little and I realized I was looking at something less pony and more striped. It was the first time I’d ever seen a zebra, and to my untrained eye he looked like a teenager. A worried teenager. He wore an elaborately designed multi-colored hooded poncho. “Here, Sky Lady, drink this. It’ll help mend you.”

He held out a gourd with a cork in it. I grabbed the cork with my teeth and pulled it out, then drank the stuff inside down. It tasted like old tea rations that had steeped for way too long and turned bitter.

The pain gradually started to fade.

“Thanks,” I gasped. “What is this stuff?”

“Green Dartura tea,” he said. “Are you gonna be okay, Sky Lady?”

“I’ve had worse. Unfortunately.” I was starting to feel less wrong inside, and some of my scrapes were closing up. Whatever he’d given me was working almost as well as a healing potion, even if it didn’t taste as good. I got to my hooves and only wobbled a little. “Why did you help me?”

“Why wouldn’t I help you?” he asked. “You’re the most beautiful pony I’ve ever seen.”

I had absolutely no context on how to start to reply to that. Thankfully, Destiny was there to fill in the gaps while I blushed and tried to think of what to say to the kid.

“What she means is, zebras and ponies are enemies,” Destiny corrected.

“Oh wow, you’ve got a machine spirit!” the zebra gasped. “That’s amazing!”

“I guess that’s sort of a correct description, in the literal sense,” Destiny muttered. “But that’s not the point! We’re at war!”

“Maybe in the old days,” the zebra shrugged. “No point to it now, quiaff? War was over a long time ago.”

“Thanks again for saving me from, uh, whoever these guys are.” I offered him a hoof. “I’m Chamomile.”

“Walks-In-Shadow,” he said. “Those ponies were raiders. They didn’t used to be so bad, but a bunch of them have been trying to get into the valley. It’s usually pretty safe here. Oh! I know! You should come back to the village with me! We’ve got better healers than me, and they can help.”

“That sounds good,” I said. “Let me just grab my stuff.”

---

“I’m really sorry about that,” I said. “I didn’t think my rifle would try to shoot you. It didn’t know you were a friendly.” I was dragging the armor behind me on an improvised sled made from a couple tree branches and the ballute. DRACO was pointed backwards, theoretically watching our backs. Destiny had settled in with the rest of the armor in what I could sense from a mile away was a gigantic pouting fit.

DRACO made an apologetic sound.

Walks-In-Shadow laughed. “It’s okay, Sky Lady. It missed!” He held up the edge of his poncho, where a neat bullet hole showed the near-hit. “I’m just happy to help. I felt like a real warrior! Maybe you could put in a good word for me, quiaff?”

I smiled. “Sure. I owe you one or two.”

He’d led the way into the depths of the canyon, past springs of water ranging from ice-cold to near-boiling, and Walks-In-Shadow seemed to know just which ones were too dangerous to get near, and which ones we could ford. It was a bit of a winding path, but if I hadn’t been in pain, dizzy, and starting to feel sick, I’d have enjoyed the walk.

“This is the way,” he said. “You see the paintings on the rocks?”

Pastel art, halfway between abstract and realist, covered the rock walls, getting more common as they closed in to form a tight passage only a little wider than the two of us walking side-by-side.

I hesitated, trying to recall what little I knew about the zebras. Which was nothing. For some reason they never really talked about zebra culture in school in the Enclave. “Is it… a record of your tribe’s history?” I guessed.

“Huh? Neg, neg.” Walks-In-Shadow laughed. “It’s just decoration. Look, this is one I painted!” He ran up to a zebra fighting some kind of big white animal. “It’s me, fighting one of the Ghost Bears like the tribe is named after!”

“I remember reading bears are pretty big, right?”

He nodded, excited. “Ghost Bears are the biggest! They’re the same color as the snow so when you’re out in the cold, they’re almost invisible! It’s how they got the name.”

“And you hunt them?” I asked. “That’s pretty cool.”

He blushed and seemed embarrassed. “Well, you know. I haven’t exactly gone on a hunt myself yet. But I will! Once the Companions hear that I helped you, Sky Lady, they’ll let me join and then I’ll be able to prove I’m a real warrior!”

“Is that who you’re going to take me to meet?” I asked. “The Companions?”

“Ay yah… maybe later. First we have to talk to the elder. She brews the Dartura tea, and she’s the wisest zebra I know. Even the Companions listen to her.” He pointed. “Right up ahead here.”

The canyon walls opened back up into a wide clearing. There were small huts all along the far wall, sturdy-looking things made with wooden beams and hide walls, more than enough to keep out what little chill there was in the warm valley. A stream trickled through, coming from a wall of white that loomed overhead. It reminded me of a cloud, but I’d later learn it was a glacier. I’d never seen that much ice in one place before.

And everywhere, there were zebra.

“I’m gonna tell the elder you’re here, so just wait here, quiaff?” Walks-In-Shadow asked, when we stopped in front of the largest of the huts. Or maybe cabins was the right word. They weren’t primitive hovels, it was a real town, and probably took more skill to build than a cloud house.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll wait right here.”

“Thanks, Sky Lady. I’ll be right back!” He ran inside like he was afraid to keep me waiting. Once he’d gone, Destiny floated off the sled and looked around critically.

“I really don’t like this, it’s got to be a trap,” Destiny whispered.

“What do you think the biggest danger is?” I asked. “The foals playing with dolls and blocks over there, the farmer pulling weeds out of a garden, or the one making wicker baskets?”

“I’m just getting ready to say ‘I told you so’,” Destiny huffed.

“I think you just don’t like them because the last thing you remember is that we were at war with them.”

“A war that ended in mutual destruction of civilization and the deaths of millions. It’s a pretty good reason, Chamomile!”

“It was also a long time ago. One thing Dad always told me is that we have to study the past so we don’t make the same mistakes. I’m not gonna make the mistake of treating them like it’s still back in your time.”

“When you say that you make me feel old,” Destiny groaned.

“You are old.”

“No, I’m undead. You get to stop counting your age when you’re undead. It’s a new rule I just invented because you made me feel old.”

I snorted with laughter just at the same moment Walks-In-Shadow stepped out. Walks-In-Shadow looked back at me, obviously curious about what I was laughing about. I shook my head and he shrugged.

“They’re ready. Come on in,” He held the door open for me.

“Is it okay to leave this out here?” I pointed to the sled.

“Don’t worry, no one will mess with it.” He looked at DRACO. “It’s not gonna shoot anyone is it?”

“It had better not,” I said firmly. DRACO made a disappointed noise.

I trotted in, Destiny floating next to me like a worried parent. Inside, wooden circles were hung up on every wall, carved with good luck charms and abstract geometric patterns and painted in bright primary colors. A hearth burned in the center of the comfortable room, and simple furniture and rugs covered the floor. A zebra waited in the back and motioned for me to come forward.

“Here she is, Elder Wheel-Of-Moons,” Walks-In-Shadow said.

She nodded. “Thank you, Walks-In-Shadow. Leave us for a time, please.”

Walks-In-Shadow bowed and stepped back out, giving me a smile before he closed the door. I think it was supposed to be reassuring but he blushed every time he looked at me so it was hard to tell if he was just nervous.

“Is this the warrior from the sky?” the Elder asked. She was grey enough that her stripes were little more than faint suggestions in her coat. “The one who fell into our valley?”

“That’s me,” I said. “Sorry if I’m intruding.”

“You are not intruding. You are lost and in need of help, and that makes you a guest.” She got up and stirred a pot over the fire. “You are also in pain, but you are trying to hide it.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I said.

She laughed. “If it is no large concern then it should be no trouble for me to treat it, quiaff?” She ladled some of the green drink from the pot into a wooden cup. “Drink this. It is a mix of Green and Red Dartura. Powerful medicine.”

I took the cup and sat down, trying to get comfortable and blowing on the near-boiling tea to cool it a little before sipping.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thanking me before the medicine has had time to work? Either Walks-In-Shadow has told you very true tales of my ability or else you are polite, and in both cases I am pleased.”

“He saved my life,” I noted. “So I was willing to trust his judgment.”

“Ah yes,” the zebra matron nodded. “He’s quite taken with his beautiful sky lady.” She laughed, making me feel self-conscious. She sat down next to me and patted my hoof. “Try not to hurt the boy’s feelings. He is too young for love, but not too young to think he is old enough, quiaff?”

I nodded. “I remember my first crush.”

“Thank you. And since you are here, and polite company, I am glad to have you.”

“You’re… not like the zebras that I remember,” Destiny admitted.

“And you are not like the occasional simple machines that I have seen,” Wheel-Of-Moons said. “You are a lost soul wandering the earth. I wish that I had medicines to help heal your spirit, but that is beyond my ability. Beyond even the ones who set us on the path to peace so long ago.”

“The path to peace?” I asked. The tea was cool enough that I could drink it without burning my tongue, so I drank a little more deeply. It soothed some of the ache in my joints and cleared my head of the fuzz.

The Elder nodded. “Our ancestors were warriors. They came here, to Equestria, to make war to soothe the pride of a leader who did not care how many had to suffer in his name. They fought in a terrible battle, and were broken in body and spirit. Instead of being executed as the enemy, they were taken in and healed. They swore to never make war again. We are descended from those healed few, and we live trying to do as little harm as we can. The world has been abused enough by pony and zebra alike, and we do what small part we can to heal it and those who live in it. Like you, Sky Lady.”

“My name is Chamomile, actually, but I don’t mind being called Sky Lady.”

The Elder smiled. “Perhaps a better name than Elder, which I got merely for being too stubborn to go into the next world. Can I ask how you came to be here, Sky Lady Chamomile?”

“We’re trying to find something that should be on the surface somewhere, but… I have no idea where we landed,” Destiny said. “It’s a long story. We ended up falling instead of coming down the way we wanted. This valley isn’t even on any of our maps.”

“And that isn’t the worst of it, quiaff?” the Elder asked. “Your hoof and feathers…”

I glanced at my silvery, tin-foil primaries. “It’s part of the reason we came here. To find a cure.”

Wheel-Of-Moon nodded. “There is one medicine we could try.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Really?”

“The infection you have, it is the same as the raiders?” she asked.

“It’s… sort of similar,” I said. “A distant cousin.”

“To fight it, you need to gather spiritual strength, or else it takes you over, body and soul. I have seen the dregs that the raiders become when their spirits give out, wretches with no mind and no soul. They throw themselves at the uninfected to spread their pain.”

“I’ve… seen that before,” I said quietly.

“The tea I’ve given you will help your body heal, but to heal your soul you need inner strength. You must have a great reserve already to have lasted this long, but it is never infinite. Before you can be cured, you must turn inward and find your guardian spirit. I can brew something that can send you on this journey, if you are willing.”

“Well, this stuff’s been working,” I said, holding up the wooden cup. “Let’s give this spirit journey thing a shot.”

Comments

[Reese]

Interesting! :D
This story's taken many turns, but I think you've been making them work well. :)

[Ahsoka Tano]

Dont know how i feel about these Zebra names but i get that they are tribal lol.