Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 21 - Thick as a Brick

Now this might sound strange considering I hang out with a literal ghost 24/7, but I am not really much of a spiritually aware pony. Back home in Cirrus Valley, I’d known a pony that put way more thought into it. She’d woken up every morning to praise the sun when it rose up above the clouds, always made sure to thank the Goddess Celestia for the good things that happened to her, and apparently did something during the full moon that the adults wouldn’t talk about when foals were listening.

I guess part of me was hoping I’d fall asleep and the Goddesses would show up and pat me on the back and tell me I was doing a great job and here’s a fortune cookie with some ideas on what I could try next. I knew it wouldn’t really be that easy but it sure would have been nice.

Instead, I was in the dark. Literally and in the 'dark night of the soul' way.

I was standing on the shore. There was sand and dirt under my hooves - my four normal hooves, no sign of the metallic thing that was clamped to my right shoulder - and white washed up around me, ebbing in and out. Waves crashed against the shore, but they were waves of cloud instead of water. I could see the surface on the other side, through the clouds, glimpses of a sky I didn’t recognize stretching under me.

I looked up into the deep.

There was only blackness. Not like the night sky. It was the black of having your eyes closed. The black of a pit yawning at the heart of the world. I felt like I was hanging on the underside of a mountain and one wrong move would make me fall forever.

No sun, no moon. A source-less white ghostlight flickered around me.

“Huh,” I said quietly, almost afraid to break the silence. I turned around to get a sense of where I was, and I was hit by the kind of knowledge that comes in a dream, where you just know a fact. I was in the field where I’d gotten my cutie mark.
When I stepped away from the shore that hadn’t been there in the real world, chamomile flowers grew under my hooves until the small patch of scrabbly grass and dirt was the way I remembered it. I knelt down to smell one of the tiny flowers, and the scent was almost overpowering.

And then something flew into my nose and I sneezed, falling back on my flank and sneezing again. A fly up the nostril is an awful experience.

“I hope my spirit guide isn’t a bucking moth,” I groaned, rubbing my nose and trying to make the itch and the urge to sneeze go away.

It was standing on the other side of the small field, at the edge of the light that came from nowhere. It was shaped like a pony, and I kind of felt myself get a little disappointed. I guess I was hoping for something cool, like a dragon.

“Hey, uh,” I started. I coughed. “So this is kind of my first time doing this. I’m supposed to find some kind of strength of spirit or inner peace, and maybe advice? I’m just going along with things because everypony else seems to have a better idea of what to do than I do.”

The pony shape moved with a strange jerking twist, and I saw a gleam of chrome. I’d been walking closer, and that shine of metal stopped me in my tracks.

The thing took halting, blind steps that were exactly like the shuffle of a wind-up clockwork toy. It stepped into the light, and I could see it wasn’t a pony at all. It was a machine, crawling with activity. An alarm clock sounded, and the swarm lifted into the air, directionless and confused and finding only me there.

---

I gasped and woke up, struggling and trying to throw them off me. I could still feel the stinging and itching and it look me a full minute of half-awake flopping around to realize that was just my body aching like it always did. Destiny hovered overhead and managed to seem fretful even with an expressionless metal helmet.

“Calm down,” Wheel-Of-Moon said soothingly. She was brushing my mane. She might have just started or she might have been doing it for a while. “Ay ya! You nearly took my head off! I didn’t think you’d have that kind of reaction.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Whatever you saw, it can’t hurt you,” she promised. “No more than any dream.”

“Then how come I feel so sore?” I asked. My skin felt itchy and raw under my coat. I could feel welts forming where I’d been stung.

“You have a very good imagination,” Wheel-Of-Moon decided. “So good your body believed it more than it believed the truth. I will brew something that will help with the stings.”

“The stings that aren’t real?”

“My medicine is especially good at treating things that aren’t real,” she said calmly, patting my head and stirring a small pot. “Tell me what you saw.”

I sat up and tried to describe it all. It didn’t take long, because the elderly zebra was smart enough to fill in the gaps that I wasn’t smart enough to bridge myself.

“A mechanical beehive shaped like a pony,” she said, slowly stirring and watching the simmering pot boil. “That is a powerful metaphor. Do you know much about bees?”

I shrugged. “I think I saw them in a book. They’ve got stingers and poison and they helped with farming or something.”

Wheel-Of-Moon nodded. “The Companions keep bees, to make their mead. You should speak to their keeper. He might have some small wisdom about such things, and I am sure that Walks-In-Shadow, who is not as stealthy as he thinks, would be more than happy to show you the way there.”

There was a surprised thud from outside, like a zebra who had been peeking inside had been spotted and was trying to pretend he’d been keeping a respectful distance all along.

---

“It wasn’t a psychosomatic reaction,” Destiny said, when they’d stepped outside. She was polite enough to at least wait until we weren’t right in front of the Elder to start arguing. “It was the SIVA.”

“Yeah, probably,” I agreed. “I’m stupid but I’m not so stupid that I can’t figure out the giant swarm thing I saw was supposed to be the infection.”

“Once the armor is finished with self-repair I want to use it to do a full-body scan. I need to see what the Dartura root is actually doing.” Destiny did a slow orbit around me. “I think it’s helping suppress the worst of it. Maybe we can use it to develop a useful weapon.”

“The Elder wouldn’t like that,” Walks-In-Shadow said. “She doesn’t think we should fight anyone. Not even the raiders.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“We wrecked the world by fighting, quiaff?” Walks-In-Shadow asked, with a shrug. “So we can’t make it better by hurting each other. She says power without perception is spiritually useless.”

We trotted around a boulder, and I got my first impression of the Companions. Mostly, I remember thinking that the little one was about to slip out of the sloppy headlock the bigger stallion had him in. The watching circle of zebras wearing war paint, scraps of armor, and furs in equal measure all cheered when I was proven right and the smaller stallion slipped free and pulled the big one down to the ground.

“Doesn’t think we should fight anyone, huh?” Destiny asked, sounding like she was glad to have found something apparently out of place.

“The Companions think a little differently,” Walks-In-Shadow said, grinning. “They’re warriors like you, Sky Lady! They’re heroes that keep the rest of the tribe safe from raiders, monsters, and wild animals.”

“I can see why you’d want to join them,” I said, watching the zebra wrestle until one of them finally tapped out. They cheered and the crowd helped both winner and loser back to their hooves, the zebra embracing each other in a quick hug before drinks were put in their hooves and they sat in front of the long tables of roughly cut logs on somewhat more carefully smoothed benches. Awnings made of brightly-colored cloth stretched from the walls of a long building and more than doubled the covered space.

They looked like they were having a great time. My stomach rumbled at the sights and smells.

“Stay on mission, Chamomile,” Destiny sighed. “I really shouldn’t have to warn you about being careful around a bunch of zebra commandos.”

I tilted my head and watched them share drinks. “I think you have to be part of the military to be a commando. They’re more like a hoofball team but without all the boring parts where they throw a ball around.”

“The beekeeper is over this way,” Walks-In-Shadow said. “They keep a few hives behind the hall to make honey for the mead and--”

“Is this the outlander the whole tribe has been talking about?” somepony, or some zebra, I guess, asked. A big mare broke off from the crowd, most of whom had decided we were worth looking at now that the fight had ended. She had a heavy, padding gait that reminded me more of an earth pony than most of the other zebra, who sort of had a prancing, dancing walk like they were on the tips of their hooves.

“Unless there’s somepony else that fell out of the sky,” I said. “...Actually, has anypony else fallen out of the sky? I have no idea if my friends came down, and I was sort of doing one of those things where you grapple with an enemy and try to drag them down to Tartarus with you when I was on my way here. So really, could be a friend or somepony who wants to murder me. Equal odds.”

“They said she was dumb-looking. Guess they were right.” She grinned, and I swear I saw fangs.

I held up a hoof to make her wait a moment.

“I just want to clear something up,” I said. “I’m not punching you yet, because my first day in prison, I punched the biggest, scariest pony there and they started crying and everypony was mad at me. Walks-In-Shadow, who is this and can I punch her?”

“Two-Bears-High-Fiving is one of the most respected warriors of the Companions,” Walks-In-Shadow whispered.

“Okay,” I said. “What about the part with the punching?”

Two-Bears punched me while I was looking the other way. She wasn’t trying to hide it, and I saw it coming a mile away. There was a sensation like ice down my spine, and everything slowed to a crawl. I could see her hoof coming in slow motion. I actually had a few moments to think about what to do. Maybe this was what life was like for ponies with good reaction time.

I grabbed her hoof and held it there without turning my head, waiting for Walks-In-Shadow to answer. Time seemed to resume its normal flow, and the feeling of deep cold washed away into summer heat, my back and wings feeling like I’d been standing out in the sun. A wash of sore exhaustion washed over me like I’d run a marathon in that instant. It faded quickly into the background of complaints about my body, but left a hunger in its wake that tried to convince me I’d missed a meal somewhere and it had come to collect.

Two-Bears seemed surprised.

“Uh,” Walks-In-Shadow blinked, equally surprised.

“You’re pretty fast,” Two-Bears said. She stepped back, and I let her hoof go because I didn’t really want to keep it. “Come on! Hit me with your best shot! I want to see what the mysterious Sky Lady can do!”

I cracked my neck. This was a mistake because I only managed to make it more sore than it had been before, but at least it looked and sounded cool.

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I threw a left hook. It was the kind of beautiful punch that could send a dragon to sleep. She took it on the jaw without even trying to block it. It was like I’d slammed my hoof into iron.

“Ow,” I thought loudly but didn’t say.

She grinned and the next thing I knew, we were trading punches and rolling in the dirt with a ring of zebra around us shouting encouragement and the kind of advice a drunk gives in a fight. Hooves hit my gut, my chest, my face. Several headbutts were exchanged. I had to fight with one hoof basically behind my back because I was worried any second a blade was going to pop out of my right forehoof and try to cut her in half.

After a minute slugging each other, I was absolutely sure about one thing. She was holding back, too. I could see it in her eyes. We kicked away from each other and rolled back to our hooves. I wiped a little blood from my chin and looked at it.

Was it darker than usual?

I nodded to her. “You’re tougher than you look.”

“You’re saying I don’t look tough?” she asked.

“I’ve been in a lot of really unfair fights lately,” I said. “No offense.”

“None taken. So have I. But I couldn’t wait around all day for them to go and get all their friends and family to even up the odds.”

I grinned and leaned in close. “You’re holding back,” I whispered.

“So are you,” she pointed out.

“I didn’t want to kill you.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” she agreed, then patted me on the back. “Fine, you’ve convinced me!” she said loudly enough the crowd could keep up. “We’ll be here all night trying to knock each other out. We’ll call it a draw!”

The ring of zebra cheered.

“Let me get you a mug of mead,” Two-Bears said.

“I was hoping to talk to the zebra that helps with the bees,” I said, looking around. “I was supposed to… I don’t know. Something about wisdom.” Maybe those headbutts had been a little strong. I had some empty space in my skull that made things rattle around more than they should.

“Smoke-in-Water is a wise zebra,” Two-Bears agreed. She patted me on the back. “Over here. We’ll get mead on the way!”

---

“And this is made out of honey?” I asked, taking another delicate sip of the mead. Delicate for me, I mean. I only drank half of the mug in one go. It was really hard to stop once you got going. “Maybe bees aren’t so bad after all.”

We were led around to the back of the longhouse. Just about as far away from it as was possible in the confines of the canyon, a zebra carrying an odd canister that seemed halfway between a kettle and a spraycan was inspecting a number of boxes set far apart from each other on plinths.

The older zebra was surrounded by bees. They orbited around him like a bunch of curious foals, clearly watching everything he did. He stepped over to one of the boxes and used the odd can he was carrying to spray smoke into the box before opening it up and peering inside, closing it and moving to the next in line.

I wasn’t sure what he was doing until he found one he was apparently satisfied with and took out a square frame that had been covered in wax.

“Oh. Those are hives, aren’t they?” I asked.

“Aff,” Two-Bears said. “There are more in the fields. Smoke-In-Water cares for them and helps move them.”

There was just one part I didn’t understand. “How do the bees build the boxes?”

Two-Bears and Destiny shared a look. Apparently that had been a particularly bad question.

“Why don’t you just go and ask him your questions?” Two-Bear sighed.

I tried to pretend I wasn’t flush with embarrassment and walked over to the zebra, keeping my distance from the aura of curious bees that seemed to be investigating his every motion. He took the wooden frame and the wax attached to it over to a table and started working. I could tell he knew I was there, but he was waiting for me to make the first move.

I struggled, trying to think of the best question to ask.

I settled on the obvious. “How do you keep them from stinging you?”

He shrugged. “Do you know much about honeybees?”

I shook my head.

“They don’t sting if they can help it. Against something more their size, like another bee or a wasp or invading ants, they can sting and get away with it. A larger foe, like you or I? The stinger gets stuck and is torn out of their bodies. They die, just to make a tiny wound. It might seem foolish, but look at you -- the first thing you did was ask how to avoid the sting.”

“Is this some kind of metaphor?” I asked, starting to get worried I was going to have to interpret it as a powerful lesson about the role of the common person against incredible odds.

“No, it’s very literal,” the old zebra said. “Though a little alchemy does help when they’re feeling upset. Smoke calms them when I need to remove a comb to harvest the honey, and a little bug musk makes them confused about if I’m a particularly large bee or not.”

“Huh,” I muttered.

“You’re the Sky Lady, I take it. Ponies are a rare sight in this valley. Ones that speak with us instead of attacking, even rarer.”

“Wheel-Of-Moon said I should talk to you.”

“Really? I must have impressed her without knowing it.” Smoke-in-Water cleaned his hooves in the bucket of water, then sat back to give me a more serious appraisal. “Tell me what happened that would make her send you to me.”

I sat down and told him about the vision I’d had. The whole time, he worked, separating wax and honey with a deftness that I couldn’t even follow. I was sure if I tried to copy him I’d just end up sticky and covered in stings.

“A hive shaped like a pony,” he said. “Quite a vision. I could tell you a few things, make a few guesses, but that’s all they’d be. Only you can find the truth behind the truth, you understand?”

I nodded.

“If this infection of yours thinks of you the same way bees think of their hive, it’s trying to help. Bees love and defend their hives. The problem is that like bees, they only know how to build a certain way.”

“Yes,” Destiny agreed, speaking up for the first time in a while. “The SIVA cells were designed to make machines, not biological tissue.”

I held up my right hoof. “I guess they’re trying to learn.”

“They’re just blindly repairing what’s in front of them with what they know,” Destiny said. “Micro-welding, carbon fiber weaving, electroplating… each one is like a microscopic machine shop, but they’re not doctors, and they’re not smart enough or coordinated enough to do more than just deal with what’s in front of them from moment to moment.”

“It sounds like they lack a queen, or the one they have is confused and afraid,” Smoke said. “Without her guidance, they swarm without direction, and the hive soon dies.”

“Directionless… that makes me think of Cirrus Valley and the way the ponies had growths all over them,” I mumbled. Was that going to happen to me? Just twisting into horrible new shapes and unable to die?

“The only way to save a hive that lost its queen is to give it a new one,” Smoke said. “I don’t know how you’d go about doing that.”

“It’d be easier if the infection just listened to me,” I groaned.

“If people were good at listening to each other, the world would be a very different, happier place,” Smoke replied.

“He’s not… entirely off his rocker,” Destiny said. “You told me once that your infection responded to the core when you were near it.”

I nodded. “Yeah. It started pulsing in time with it. The same thing happened with the infected out in the valley. I could feel them getting closer.”

“I’ve been suppressing your infection with a near-field signal. It stands to reason that the more coordinated infected like those raiders might be connected in the same way. But that would also mean they were connected to something…”

“You think the dragon is here,” I said.

“The infection had to come from somewhere, and that metal monster was more than tough enough that it could just fly through the lightning shield without caring about taking a few hits,” Destiny pointed out.

“A dragon?” Two-Bears trotted up to us quickly, suddenly serious. “A huge metal dragon?”

“Yeah. It would have been--”

“This dragon of yours -- did it constantly change shape? And it couldn’t be killed by any mortal weapon?”

Destiny slowly turned from Two-Bears to me. I nodded mutely.

“I thought Wolf-In-Exile was telling tall tales,” Two-Bears said. “The last time I spoke to the old dog he told me he saw something like that, out in the Plaguelands. It’s been too busy for anyone to look into.”

Destiny caught on faster than I did. “That was about the time the raiders started being different, wasn’t it?”

Two-Bears nodded. “Ever since then, we’ve been having to fight off attacks, and you’ve seen what they’re like now. Twisted flesh and metal growing together. Abominations that are almost impossible to put down.”

“You don’t think she came down here, do you?” I asked quietly.

“Do you know a lot of giant metal dragons, Chamomile? Ones made of SIVA?” Destiny bobbed. “We need to go check it out.”

“How long until the armor finishes fixing itself?” I asked.

“At least a day. Maybe more. The thaumoframe EPS conduits are blown out. That’s delicate work for a spell to repair, so it has to go slowly. If I had the right tools and parts I could speed it up, but I don’t think we’re going to find a spell oscilloscope and an ODN recoupler just lying around in the mud.”

“Can we wait that long?”

“We shouldn’t need the armor just to do a little recon,” Destiny mused. “The weapons wouldn’t be much good against her anyway. We should use the time to gather intel, come up with a plan, and try to figure out what to actually do about her since a battleship blowing her head off with giant cannons only made her mad.”

Two-Bears looked thoughtful. “You should go speak to Wolf-In-Exile. He knows more about the metal plague than anyone else, and he’s the one who saw this dragon.”

“We’re really getting passed around today,” I groaned. My legs were sore. I was better about walking on the ground than a lot of pegasus ponies but it still made my hooves sore after a while. “Where is he?”

“He stays at the mouth of the valley, in the Iron Temple,” she said. “Walks-In-Shadow can show you the way.”

“I can?” Walks asked.

Two-Bears looked back at him. “I know you’ve made the journey on your own before. Taking along a warrior should only make things easier.”

“But what if we find the dragon?” he asked, the kid obviously nervous at the prospect.

“Just do what I’d do,” Two-Bears said. “But… smaller.” She ruffled his mane. “You’ll be fine.”

---

“You know, I think they really liked you,” Walks-In-Shadow said. “If you decide to stay I bet you could join the Companions!”

“We won’t be sticking around that long,” Destiny said. She didn’t quite snap at him, but she said it the same way I’d heard my dad talk to waitresses. It wasn’t very nice. Walks-In-Shadow either didn’t catch on to the tone or decided to ignore it.

“They seem like good pon- good zebras,” I said. “Good people.”

“They are,” Walks-In-Shadow said. “So are you! I can tell.”

I scoffed and blushed a little. He gave compliments the way only a kid could, completely meaning what he said and without any subterfuge or second meaning behind it.

“It’s important to be able to see the good in someone else,” he said. “I think everyone has good in them somewhere, even if it’s deep down inside. That’s why we live here.”

I wasn’t sure I followed him. “What do you mean?”

“When the bombs fell and death came from all sides, our people were released from the prison where they had been waiting for the war to end.” The way he spoke, it was clear he’d learned most of this by rote and was trying to recite it exactly the way it had been told to him. “The ponies who set us free did so because they believed we deserved a chance to survive, and that even if we could not find a way, we could still die as free zebra and not in our cells.”

“There was a big POW camp outside Stalliongrad,” Destiny mused. “Must have been a few hundred zebra there, at least.”

“Our ancestors went out into the cold and braved the ice and the sickness and the windigos. They had nothing but what little they carried, and many died in the cold. One day, they found a pony, alone, injured, all but unarmed. They welcomed him and shared what little they had, and the shamans healed his wounds.”

I was starting to see where this was going now.

“And he led you here as a reward for your kindness?” I asked.

“No!” Walks-In-Shadow grinned. “He bid for us to stand back, and he took the only thing he had with him, a shovel, and dug into the earth. The earth cracked and erupted from the single blow, and the valley opened up, filled with warmth and flowing water.”

“Really?” Destiny said.

“That’s what Wheel-Of-Moon told me, and it’s what her grandmother told her. All the way back to the old days. This place was our reward, not for the simple kindness we showed, but for having abandoned hate in our hearts. We became worthy of it. The pony couldn’t stay with us and left as mysteriously as he had come, but with the strength we had given him driving him forward.”

“It almost sounds like a variation of the Rockhoof legend,” Destiny noted. “A weakened pony that gains strength, saves a village with digging skills, and there’s even a magic shovel. It’s probably something half-remembered that they were taught in the POW camp to try and civilize them.”

“Even if it’s just a legend, this is still a really nice place to live,” Walks-In-Shadow said brightly, not taking offense even when Destiny used the word ‘civilize’ unironically. “The Companions help keep it that way by driving the raiders out when they come along.”

“To be honest, this is a nice place,” Destiny conceded. “I was getting really tired of a monochrome landscape.”

“Cloudscape, technically,” I said.

“Point taken. Still, if we had to pick a place to be stranded while the armor self-repairs, this is not a bad spot. When I was alive I couldn’t keep potted plants alive so I had to settle for plastic decorations that nearly looked real as long as you needed glasses and didn’t get too close.”

“They made plastic plants?”

“We made everything,” Destiny said. “And look where it got us.”

“Don’t sound so down,” Walks-In-Shadow said. “We’re just about at the easy part of the walk. Once we get up on this ridge, we can follow the old road the rest of the way to the Iron Temple.”

“A road sounds good,” I said. “We could just fly up there, you know. I could carry you.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun! But I’m sort of worried about Windigos. The Iron Temple is right on the edge of the valley, you know? I heard anything that flies too far up gets frozen by the ice spirits.”

“Windigos are a myth,” Destiny stated very firmly.

“Maybe, but they can still kill you if you’re not careful,” Walks-In-Shadow said. “It’s better to keep low where the air’s warm. They won’t come down here.”

Destiny looked at me for support. I sighed and shrugged.

“He knows the valley better than we do,” I said quietly. “Even if there aren’t any Windigos, there are raiders and maybe my mom. I’d rather keep a low profile until we’ve got a weapon at hoof that can do some real damage.”

“It’s just… inefficient,” Destiny grumbled.

“I got shot almost to death once today, I just don’t want to repeat the performance.”

“Fine,” Destiny sighed.

We scrambled the last few steps on the steep hill, the black soil loose underhoof, and the road came into view. It was… well, it was a road. I’d like to say it was beautiful and awe-inspiring just to make the story more dramatic but the truth is there’s only so much awe to go around with a ribbon of broken asphalt littered with rusted-out hulks of old carts and twisted guardrails.

“This is a lot easier to walk on,” Walks-In-Shadow said. “We can make really good time if we take it all the way.”

Destiny floated idly over to one of the signs at the side of the road, using her telekinesis to brush off more than a century and a half of dirt and ash. She gasped and spun around, bobbing wildly.

“Chamomile, look!”

Destiny floated in front of a faded, rusting sign that had mostly been grown over by weeds. A big diamond was painted on it in white, with the number thirteen emblazoned on it.

“This is the Princess Flurry Heart Thirteenth Birthday Memorial Highway!” Destiny said, shocked. “I’ve been here before!”

“That’s… quite a name,” I said. “There’s a story behind it, isn’t there?”

“The victims of that terrible day will never be forgotten,” Destiny whispered. “Anyway we mostly just called it Highway Thirteen. It really is a mouthful otherwise.”

“So this means you know where we are, right?” I asked.

Destiny wobbled one direction, then the other, in the sort of shrug a skull can do absent a body. “I can narrow it down, but Highway Thirteen ran all the way from Stalliongrad to the Empire, and I don’t remember any of it falling into a massive volcanic rift valley. I bet this place cracked open at the same time Mount Reiner erupted.”

“Mount Reiner?” I asked.

“The volcano where you found the Blue,” Destiny explained.

“Oh. We called it the Smokestack.”

“A bit too on-the-nose.”

“You ponies know all sorts of neat things!” Walks-In-Shadow smiled. “I’d love to hear the tale of how this road got its name. I could be the first one to bring the story back to the village!” He paused. “But then Wheel-Of-Moon might want me to be a scholar instead of a warrior!”

“What’s wrong with being a scholar?” Destiny asked.

“Nothing! I just want to be a warrior and seek glory and fame of my own instead of retelling the stories of our tribe.”

He and Destiny started to debate the importance in passing on information in the continuation of a society, and it was probably a really interesting philosophical thing, but I was busy stumbling over to the guardrail and not falling over. Everything swam around me, and I could feel the SIVA crawling inside me, twisting around my insides like a claw reaching into my guts and shifting things around. Worse than that, I could feel a pulse in the air like the heartbeat of the whole world, and my infection pulsed along with it.

“What’s wrong?” Destiny asked. I’d fallen to my knees. I hadn’t even felt myself fall. I’d blinked and I suddenly couldn’t stand.

“Something’s coming,” I managed to gasp. I wasn’t sure I could control my breathing. It was like the opposite of when somepony tells you you’re breathing manually. My lungs were moving air in and out and I couldn’t change the pace they were at, just pumping slowly like a bellows in my chest.

“Drink this,” Walks-In-Shadow said, pressing a gourd to my lips. “It’s Green and Red Dartura.”

I nodded shakily and swallowed small sips. The pounding and shaking started to quiet themselves. “We need to get out of sight,” I gasped. I was starting to feel like I could control my body again.

“Okay,” Walks said, not arguing. He looked around, then grabbed a broken piece of guard rail and used it to pop open the back of a delivery truck. “In here!”

I leaned on his shoulder to get inside, but I tried not to put too much weight on the zebra. I was worried I’d break him. We’d barely gotten into cover before the whole road started to shake.

“What is that?” Destiny whispered, floating closer to a window.

“It’s just what we didn’t want to find yet,” I said, as the dragon swooped overhead, flying past us and up the road. “You said this road goes to the Iron Temple?”

“Yeah, right to it,” Walks-In-Shadow confirmed, watching the massive metal shape pass overhead with awe.

I chugged a few more gulps of the cold tea. “I think we better hurry. If you’ve got friends there, they’re about to be in more trouble than they can handle.”

Comments

[Reese]

I continue to enjoy this; thank you for writing. :)

[Ahsoka Tano]

Felt like a Dragon ball episode all its missing is Cham eating some food lol.